US offering to help China in fight against viral infection

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt is making a previously scheduled trip to Beijing next week and plans to discuss health issues with Chinese officials, with the outbreaks of hand, foot and mouth disease expected to feature prominently, U.S. Embassy spokesman Susan Stevenson said.

The scope and volume of infections brings to mind the SARS epidemic of 2003, when China was criticized internationally for trying to conceal the emergence of the disease. American health experts have previously helped study and control infectious diseases like SARS.

Chinese officials have said the outbreaks will not affect the Beijing Olympics in August. Preparations already have been marred by unrest in Tibet and demonstrations against China's human rights record during the Olympic torch relay around the world.

The latest deaths occurred in the hardest-hit central province of Anhui, where 22 children have died of hand, foot and mouth disease, the provincial health bureau said on its Web site.

It said serious cases, however, were on the decline in Fuyang city, the site of the most infections and where the first wave of outbreaks was recorded.

As of late Thursday, the number of reported cases countrywide jumped to 24,932, the official Xinhua News Agency said -up 25 percent from 19,962 a day earlier. Cases have cropped up from Guangdong province in the south to Jilin province in the northeast, along with major cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Health experts have said they expect the number of reported infections to rise as a result of a Ministry of Health order this week requiring health care providers to report infections within 24 hours. The disease is expected to peak in the hot months of June and July.

Telephones at the Ministry of Health were not answered Friday.

Stevenson said William Steiger, director of the Office of Global Health Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, told a group of Chinese journalists in Washington this week that the U.S. "is glad to help when and if needed." No details were given.