Enterovirus Leg arm mouth Rash on the body of a child Cocksackie virus

What is 'hand foot and mouth' disease and how to recognise it

By Cristiano Antonino On Aug 24, 2022

Very common among children, “hand,foot and mouth” syndrome is a disease caused by an easily transmissible virus

How hand foot and mouth disease is transmitted

The viruses responsible for hand-foot-and-mouth syndrome belong to the Enterovirus family, viruses that spread very quickly via saliva.

Schools and kindergartens are the ideal breeding ground for this disease: all it takes is for droplets of saliva to pass from mouth to mouth, from a sneeze, a cough or a simple kiss, and that’s it.

Once the disease is contracted, the child remains contagious for 7 days, but will continue to eliminate the virus via faeces for more than a month or so.

Symptoms of hand foot and mouth syndrome

In most cases, this syndrome lasts about 10 days and produces rather mild effects that rarely result in real complications.

The first symptoms appear after 1 week, the average incubation period.

The child may experience

generalised malaise
sore throat;
mouth discomfort.

Fever is not always detectable and, even when present, does not usually last longer than 24 hours.

In the days that follow, the most obvious manifestation of this disease appears: the exanthema, a series of red spots localised in particular on the hands, feet and mouth (although the buttocks and genitals cannot be excluded) that change their appearance from day to day until they become small blisters that cause pain and burning.