Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the epidemiology of hand-foot-and-mouth disease and varicella in a general hospital in Guangzhou, China

We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients with hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) and varicella treated in a general hospital in Guangzhou, China between 2017 and 2023 to evaluate the effect of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the epidemiology of HFMD and varicella in Guangzhou. The epidemiological characteristics of HFMD and varicella before (2017–2019), during (2020–2022), and after (2023) the pandemic were compared. In total, 1731 cases of HFMD and 1043 cases of varicella were reported before the COVID-19 pandemic (2017–2019), with average reporting rates of 0.08% and 0.05%, respectively. During the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2022), the number of reported cases of HFMD and varicella decreased to 571 and 389, respectively, with average reporting rates of 0.03% and 0.02%, respectively, which were significantly different from those in the pre-pandemic period (P < 0.001). In the post-pandemic period (2023), the reporting rate of HFMD was 0.07%, showing a marked increase compared with that in 2022 (P < 0.001). However, the difference in the reporting rate of varicella in 2023 did not differ significantly from that in 2022 (P =0.204). These results suggest that non-pharmaceutical interventions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic might be helpful in preventing the spread of HFMD and varicella.