HFMD

Bonnie Maldonado, a professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases at Stanford University Medical School, explains that in HFMD, small blisters develop on the tongue and elsewhere in the mouth, the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet; it can be somewhat painful, Maldonado says, and can cause fever, sometimes a high one.

The researchers themselves warn that: "The EV71 vaccine might have little part in reducing the overall incidence of HFMD, even by universal mass immunisation of children."

Hand, foot and mouth disease, or HFMD, is a common childhood virus that pediatricians, day-care centers and preschools see throughout summer and early fall.

Melissa Arca, a pediatrician in Sacramento, where the disease seems to have hit hard, says there were times during the summer when she saw three or four children every day with severe HFMD, and she only works half days at her clinic.