An unidentified illness has killed 38 children and sickened more than 60 others in 17 Vietnamese provinces during the past three months, state-controlled media reported Saturday. the disease is suspected of being part of the enterovirus group, the Lao Dong (Labor) trade union newspaper quoted the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City as saying. It is believed to attack the intestines and the brain. However, officials have said it does not appear to be enterovirus 71, which killed 30 children in Malaysia in 1997 and more than 50 children in Taiwan in 1998. Doctors and medical experts, along with the World Health Organization, completed an epidemiology survey in Ho Chi Minh City on April 15. They did not classify the illnesses as an outbreak because the cases did not appear to be linked and were scattered throughout many provinces, the newspaper said. All of the children who succumbed to the disease experienced symptoms of high fever and convulsion. Nearly 70 percent died within a day of becoming sick. Nguyen Van Thuong, vice minister of health, told health institutes to closely coordinate with one another to carry out a more thorough study of the disease and to work out uniformed diagnosis and treatment methods to be sent to all hospitals, it said. Health officials have said the cases do not appear to be linked to severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, a new flu-like illness that has killed five medical workers in Vietnam and more than 290 people worldwide. [Source: AP]