Objective: To understand the pathogen-carrying status of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) among healthy people in Guangdong province.
Methods: Stool specimens were collected randomly on 7 age groups from 7 cities in Guangdong province. Real-time RT-PCR was used to detect enterovirus (EV), enterovirus 71 (EV71) and coxsackie virus A16 (CA16).
Results: Altogether, 1285 stool specimens were collected. The positive rates of EV71, CA16 and other enterovirus were 0.39% (5/1285), 0.23% (3/1285) and 7.00% (90/1285), respectively. The highest EV71 positive rate (1.79%) was among the 4-6-year-old group, followed by the age group 0 - 3 with positive rate as 0.67%. EV71 was not found among the rest age groups. The highest CA16 positive rate (1.35%) was among the 4 - 6 year-olds group, but the CA16 was not found among the rest age groups. EV71 was only found among native population, with the positive-rate as 0.47%. CA16-positive rate was 0.19% among the native population and 0.85% among floating population, with no significant difference found (P > 0.05). The EV71 positive rate was 0.36% among rural residents and 0.54% among urban residents, but with no significant difference (P > 0.05). All CA16 was found among the urban residents.
Conclusion: Recessive infection of EV71 and CA16 were only found among 0-6 year-old group but not found among other groups, which suggested that the approaches on prevention and control should be targeted to all children especially on pre-school children.