As monkeypox is ravaging through communities, but on a low profile, and as the United States and much of the world is just finishing up recovery from the Covid pandemic, a new and highly contagious infection is spreading among children in India. The Indian Health Ministry has named the viral infection the “tomato flu” as a total of 82 children younger than 5 have been infected.

According to an article published by the British Medical Journal Lancet, the name comes from the "eruption of red and painful blisters throughout the body that gradually enlarge to the size of a tomato.” Oddly enough, the blisters seem to resemble that of the monkeypox reaction. The disease itself seems to spread through close contact, as many viral infections do, but is deemed non-life-threatening.

Many health experts are claiming that the tomato flu can be a new variant of hand, foot, and mount disease which is most common among children younger than 5. The previously referenced journal, Lancet, states that the infection tends to resolve spontaneously without treatment. No drug is available that specifically targets it anyway.

The use of diapers, the tendency to touch unclean surfaces, and the urge to put things into their mouths give young children an increased risk. Lancet wrote, "Given the similarities to hand, foot, and mouth disease if the outbreak of tomato flu in children is not controlled and prevented, transmission might lead to serious consequences by spreading in adults as well.”

Symptoms include a high fever, joint pain, and rashes as well as fatigue, vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, and other flu-like symptoms. Tomato flu is diagnosed after tests have ruled out dengue, chikungunya, Zika, chickenpox, and herpes.