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BEIJING - More than 11,900 children have been reported sick with hand, foot and mouth disease in China, and at least 26 of those cases have died, a state news agency said.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A child suspected of being stricken with the deadly enterovirus 71 virus receives treatment at a hospital in Hefei, central China's Anhui province Monday May 5, 2008.

Twenty-four of the deaths, in the central province of Anhui and Guangdong province in the south, have been blamed on enterovirus 71, one of several viruses that cause the disease, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday.

Two other children - one in Guangdong and another in the coastal province of Zhejiang - have also died of hand, foot and mouth disease but it wasn't immediately clear which strain of virus killed them, it said.

Xinhua said 10,212 children had been reported infected in the hardest-hit areas, including the provinces of Anhui, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and the capital Beijing. All were below the age of six and the majority were under the age of two, it said.

The total number of infections reported nationwide by Monday was 11,905, Xinhua said, with smaller outbreaks in Hebei, Jiangsu, Hunan, Hubei, Shaanxi, Jiangxi and Henan provinces and in the city of Chongqing.

Although nearly all the deaths have been blamed on enterovirus 71, also known as EV-71, it was not immediately clear how many of the overall infections were traced to the virus.

Zhejiang's provincial health bureau said on its website that only nine of its 1,198 cases had tested positive for EV-71. Chongqing said none of its 42 infections have been confirmed to be cause by EV-71.

Xinhua said the jump in cases was due in part to a new regulation from the Ministry of Health classifying hand, foot and mouth disease among those that have to be reported to the central government.

The agency said a majority of the cases were reported in Anhui province, where 5,840 cases were reported, nearly all of them in the fast-growing city of Fuyang.

Enterovirus causes a severe form of hand, foot and mouth disease with symptoms including fever, mouth sores and rashes with blisters. It is easily spread by sneezing or coughing. The viruses mainly strike children ages 10 and younger. Some cases can lead to fatal swelling of the brain.

The illness is not related to foot and mouth disease, which afflicts livestock.

There is no vaccine or specific treatment, but most children affected by mild forms of the disease typically recover quickly without problems.

The World Health Organization says the virus normally peaks in June and July so there could be an increase in infections as the weather warms.

The outbreak is another headache for China as it prepares to host this summer's Olympic Games, already tarnished by unrest among Tibetans in western China and an international torch relay disrupted by protests.