Circulating trends of hand, foot, and mouth disease in Hubei Province, China: Impact from the COVID-19 pandemic

OBJECTIVES: This study was performed to investigate the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on hand, foot, and mouth disease in Hubei Province China during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. METHODS: Data and samples were collected from the hand, foot, and mouth disease surveillance laboratory network in Hubei Province between 2018 and 2022. The samples were identified as Enterovirus A71, Coxsackievirus A6or Coxsackievirus A16 via real-time polymerase chain reaction. Representative Coxsackievirus A6 and Coxsackievirus A16 samples were sequenced and subjected to phylogenetic analyses. RESULTS: A noticeable 3-fold reduction in the number of hand, foot, and mouth disease cases was observed from 2019 to 2020. The age and sex distributions of patients with hand, foot, and mouth disease were approximately the same from 2018 to 2022. The proportion of Coxsackievirus A6 accounted for 86 % in 2020 and 75 % in 2021 for hand, foot, and mouth disease compared with 48 % in 2018, 53 % in 2019, and 29 % in 2022. The proportions of Coxsackievirus A16 in 2020 and 2021 were 2 % and 17 %, respectively, showing a sharp decline in 2018 (37.8 %) and 2019 (35 %). In 2022, Coxsackievirus A16 was the dominant serotype (46 %). Only slight differences were found in the VP1 sequences across the different years. CONCLUSIONS: Our study confirmed that a series of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the coronavirus disease 2019 period reduced the transmission of enteroviruses and that long-term restrictions could significantly change the prevalence of enterovirus serotypes causing hand, foot, and mouth disease.