Key result
COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions linked to ~95% reduction in expected HFMD cases.
Why the study?
The impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of hand, foot, and mouth disease was unclear.
Do non-pharmacological interventions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic reduce the incidence of hand, foot, and mouth disease?
Observational
Do non-pharmacological interventions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic reduce the incidence of hand, foot, and mouth disease?
Non-pharmaceutical interventions implemented for COVID-19 were associated with a 94.9% reduction in the incidence of hand, foot, and mouth disease.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
NPIs may curb HFMD transmission; leaves open whether targeted measures merit routine adoption outside pandemics.
BACKGROUND: Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is a highly prevalent and contagious disease, particularly in children under five years old. Its transmission route resembles that of COVID-19. During the COVID-19 pandemic, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) were implemented to curb viral spread, which may have concurrently reduced HFMD incidence. METHODS: Utilizing HFMD surveillance data from the Anhui Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2015-2020) and varying levels of COVID-19 emergency measures, a Bayesian structural time series model predicted the counterfactual HFMD incidence and quantified the causal relationships with NPIs. RESULTS: During the implementation of NPIs, the 915 cases observed between weeks 4 and 20 of 2020 reflected a 94.9% reduction from the expected cases number (915 vs. 17,790), avoiding approximately 16,875 cases. The relative reduction of male cases (95.2%) was similar to that of female cases (94.3%). Different age groups the number of cases decline roughly similar were 93.1%, 95.3%, 97.8%, 94.9%. CONCLUSION: During the COVID-19 pandemic, NPIs implemented in response to COVID-19 effectively reduced HFMD incidence. NPIs should be promoted for future control of enteric infectious diseases such as HFMD.
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Ma et al. (2024) conducted an observational in Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) against COVID-19 vs. Expected incidence based on historical data (2015-2019) was evaluated on Incidence of HFMD cases (94.9% relative reduction). During the implementation of COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions, observed HFMD cases were reduced by 94.9% compared to expected cases (915 vs. 17,790), avoiding approximately 16,875 cases.
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