Mlang under monitoring for possible FMD outbreak

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines --- Health authorities have been monitoring since Friday the entire Mlang town in the province after six children contracted foot-and-mouth disease.

Physician Glecerio Sotea, Mlang’s municipal health officer, said blood samples from each of the children have been sent to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine for evaluation.

“They have rashes in their hands, legs, foot and in their mouths, which are indicative of FMD,” Sotea said.

Sotea said the patients are all pre-school children, who are most vulnerable to FMD infection.

He said they are now documenting the suspected FMD cases, which were said to have originated in Mlang’s Barangays Dugong, Poblacion II, and Bialong.

Sotea said he has prescribed multi-vitamins and antibiotics to the patients.

The spread of FMD in Mlang came just several months after more than a hundred students of public schools in the area contracted mosquito-borne chikungunya disease.

The disease is caused by an arthropod-borne virus, which, like dengue fever, is also spread by mosquitoes.