Work

Impact of non-pharmacological interventions on incidence of hand, foot and mouth disease during the COVID-19 pandemic: a large population-based observational study

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: 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.

Source: BMC Infectious Diseases

DOI: 10.1186/s12879-024-10252-z