Hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) and herpangina are commonly prevalent illness in young children. They are
similarly characterized by lesions on the skin and oral mucosa. Both diseases are associated with various enterovirus
serotypes. In this study, enteroviruses from patients with these diseases in Korea in 2009 were isolated and
analyzed. Demographic data for patients with HFMD and herpangina were compared and all enterovirus isolates
were amplified in the VP1 region by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and sequenced. Among the
enterovirus isolates, prevalent agents were coxsackievirus A16 in HFMD and coxsackievirus A5 in herpangina. More
prevalent months for HFMD were June (69.2%) and May (11.5%), and June (40.0%) and July (24.0%) for herpangina.
Age prevalence of HFMD patients with enterovirus infection was 1 year (23.1%), 4 years (19.2%), and over 5 years
(19.2%). However, the dominant age group of herpangina patients with enterovirus infection was 1 year (48.0%)
followed by 2 years (28.0%). Comparison of pairwise VP1 nucleotide sequence alignment of all isolates within the
same serotypes revealed high intra-type variation of CVA2 isolates (84.6–99.3% nucleotide identity). HFMD and
herpangina showed differences in demographic data and serotypes of isolated enteroviruses, but there was no
notable difference in amino acid sequences by clinical syndromes in multiple comparison of the partial VP1 gene
sequence