Duration of Virus Shedding in HFMD

Data analysis was performed with R software (version 3.3.2) and SPSS (version 19.0, Armonk, NY). Chi-squared and Fisher’s exact tests were used for the categorical data analysis. The endpoint of virus shedding is the last positive-sample date. However, interval-censored types have been considered, the middle endpoint between the last positive culture date and the first negative culture date was applied to count cumulative survival, and the survfit function of the survival package was employed to compare the differences in duration of virus shedding among the four different pathogen groups (Fig 1). All healthy persons were divided into five age groups according to the age distribution of patients with HFMD [24 (link)]. Additionally, P<0.05 indicated a significant difference.