BEIJING - HEALTH officials on Friday ordered emergency medical teams to inspect hundreds of villages in eastern China amid a worsening hand-foot-mouth disease outbreak that has killed at least nine children in less than two weeks.

The deaths occurred in Shandong province, where no fatalities from the disease were recorded last year. But this spring's strain has been especially virulent, the provincial health bureau said in a news release.

At least seven deaths have occurred in the city of Heze alone, the release said, with the first reported on March 22. The other two were reported in the nearby city of Jining, it said.

The emergency inspections will cover 600 villages under Heze's jurisdiction, the city's health bureau said in a statement.

The cases are part of a nationwide outbreak that has killed 19 children as of March 26. It's not immediately clear if the nine in Shandong are part of the tally. Calls to the Health Ministry were not answered.

As of this year, more than 41,000 cases have been reported.

Almost 95 per cent of the cases were children younger than 5, the Health Ministry has said, and 75 per cent of all cases tested positive for the EV-71 virus, a particularly dangerous strain.

State media reported last year that the virus sickened 27,000 people and killed dozens nationwide in the first few months of 2008 before reports of outbreaks subsided in May. China's central Anhui was the worst-hit province with 26 deaths. It's not known how many died nationwide.

Last weekend, Health Minister Chen Zhu urged medical workers to fan out across the country's rural areas to detect and prevent cases of the disease, which typically strikes infants and children. While occasionally deadly, most cases are mild, with children recovering quickly.

Hand-foot-mouth disease is characterised by fever, mouth sores and a rash with blisters. It is spread by direct contact with nose and throat discharges, saliva, fluid from blisters, or the stool of infected persons.

It is not related to hoof-and-mouth disease, which infects cattle, sheep and pigs. -- AFP