“Tomato flu”: “There is no need to worry”, reassures infectious disease specialist Benjamin Rossi – TF1 INFO

After more than two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, and in the midst of the emergence of monkey pox, a third virus has appeared: the “tomato flu”. Since the beginning of May, more than 80 cases have been identified in India. The disease, which affects children and takes its name from the red, round, painful blisters it causes on the hands, feet and mouth, is not fatal, “but it is contagious”, Indian doctors warn . For Dr Benjamin Rossi, infectious disease doctor at Robert Ballanger Hospital (Aulnay-sous-Bois), there is no reason to sound the alarm. “It looks like a Coxsackie, a benign, childish virus, which gives the foot-hand-mouth syndrome”, he reassures TF1info. “It could be a virus from this family”, located in India. Because according to Professor Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health in Geneva (Switzerland), this virus is “an endemic disease of the Indian state of Kerala”, he explains to us. “To my knowledge, he has not left the Indian subcontinent.”