Health authorities in east China's Shandong Province confirmed Saturday one more child died of hand-foot-mouth disease, driving up the death toll from the 23 in the province.

The latest death occurred Thursday in Caoxian County, Heze City. No other details about the newly dead child, such as the sex and age, is available.

The total included 18 deaths in Heze, two each in Jining and Liaocheng, and one in Yantai, according to Shandong Provincial Health Bureau.

The populous province has reported more than 29,227 cases of the contagious disease, 826 of which were severe, local health authorities said. So far, 23,161 have recovered.

Hospitals in the province were ordered to reserve enough beds and other resources to prepare for any massive outbreak, and public awareness campaigns have been mounted.

The disease killed 50 children nationwide this year as of April 7, the Ministry of Health said earlier.

According to the ministry, the disease was mainly reported in rural areas and nearly 80 percent of the total cases were in 10 provinces and autonomous regions including Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, Guangxi and Zhejiang.

Zhang Jing, an official in charge of intestinal infection prevention with China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention has said that the disease would not spread nationwide as it was not mainly transmitted through respiratory systems like SARS, measles and other highly-infectious diseases.

Hand-foot-mouth disease is a common illness that mainly affects children under the age of 10. Symptoms include fever, sores in the mouth and a rash with blisters. It can sometimes be fatal if complications occur. May and July are peak periods for the disease.

(Xinhua News Agency May 3, 2009)