TWO preschools and five childcare centres have been be ordered by the Health Ministry (MOH) to close for 10 days due to the extent of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) outbreak there.

Another seven preschools and six childcare centres with sustained transmission have been advised to shut voluntarily for 10 days.

Centres with more than 13 HFMD cases or a sustained transmission of more than 15 days will be mandatorily shut, said the MOH.

Two of the centres asked to shut are located within public hospitals - one at KK Women's and Children's and Tan Tock Seng hospitals.

The number of HFMD cases spiked by 25 per cent to 1,245 cases last week, from the 1,000 a week ago.

Of these, 16 children were hospitalised last week mainly because of poor feeding.

The new cases brought the total number of notified cases since the beginning of this year to 7,560.

MOH's surveillance continues to show a high circulation of Enterovirus 71 (EV71) virus, with 19 per cent of the samples tested positive for EV71 so far this year.

The last time childcare centres and pre-schools were ordered to shut was during the 2000 outbreak in which seven children died.

They were ordered to stay closed at the beginning of October 2000, affecting about 140,000 children aged five and below and their parents.

Closure of a centre will assist in breaking the transmission of HFMD cases and allow the centre to thoroughly clean the premises.

Meanwhile, the condition of the seven-year-old girl hospitalised for encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) on April 9 l is improving.

HFMD is generally a mild and self-limiting childhood disease. It is endemic in Singapore, with yearly seasonal outbreaks.

MOH said the continued rise in reported cases is expected as part of the epidemic uptrend, and is also partly caused by increased public awareness of the disease from our public education efforts.