Hand-foot-mouth disease and herpangina (HFMD/HA) are typical benign and common selflimiting child diseases, characterized by rapidly ulcerating vesicles in the mouth and lesions, usually vesicles, on the hands and feet. HFMD/HA is caused by a few serotypes of enterovirus, most frequently coxsackie virus A16 (CAV A16) and human enterovirus 71 (HEV 71). In 1998, there was a large outbreak of HFMD/HA caused by HEV 71 in Taiwan resulting in 405 severe cases and 78 deaths, which were associated with complications of encephalitis, pulmonary edema/hemorrhage, death. Until now, the reason for the occurrence of this outbreak was unclear. The purpose of this study was to review the updated of HFMD/HA statistics available from the Centers for disease Control, Taiwan (Taiwan CDC) and knowledge of HFMD/HA caused by HEV 71, including etiology, clinical manifestation, diagnosis and treatment, and draw attention to prevention and intervention effort.