(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-05-08 21:38

BEIJING  -- China has reported 21,502 hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) cases so far this year by Thursday, resulting in 30 deaths, according to a Xinhua tally of local official figures.

The figure stood at 19,962 on Wednesday, Xinhua found.

The rising number was not a sign of a deteriorating situation, but mainly because of a recent order by the Ministry of Health that made HFMD a class C epidemic, the incidence of which must be reported.

The eastern Shandong Province reported 1,440 HFMD cases on Thursday. The southernmost Hainan Province updated the number of infections to 180 and the northwestern Qinghai Province updated the number to 10 on Thursday.

The Shandong health authority asked the grassroots hospitals to immediately shift children with fever under five years old bigger hospitals for better treatment.

So far, EV71 is blamed for most of the 30 deaths in the outbreak of the disease. Of all the victims, 22 were in Anhui, three in Guangdong and two in Hainan, with the rest in Zhejiang, Guangxi, and Hunan, respectively.