A virus outbreak in an eastern Chinese city has killed 19 children and left hundreds ill, spreading panic among residents, state media reported on Sunday nearly two months after the outbreak started.

The intestinal virus called enterovirus 71 or EV71, one trigger of hand-foot-mouth disease, began spreading in Fuyang in Anhui province from early March, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing the city health office.

The young victims went to hospitals with "fever, along with blisters, ulcers in the mouth or rashes on the hands and feet," the report said.

By Saturday, 19 children had died from the outbreak and 204 remained in hospital, including four in a critical condition. In total, 789 were struck by the virus, mostly younger then two years old.

China's Minister of Health Chen Zhu visited Fuyang on Saturday and other officials and doctors have gone there to investigate, help patients, and "fully roll out prevention and control work," said Xinhua.

The report did not identify the source of the virus or say why Fuyang has been hit so badly. Nor did it say why the outbreak was publicly reported only now.

Rumours and panic had earlier spread among residents, with many parents keeping children out of school and indoors, according to a newspaper report reprinted by the China News Service.

"All sorts of claims rapidly spread via the Internet, phone calls and text messages, and an air of panic spread," reported the Democracy and Law Times newspaper.

"A kid who was just bouncing and jumping around one moment can be gone for good in two or three hours," one parent with a stricken child told the paper.

In 2004, the industrial and agricultural hub with a population of some 900,000 became the centre of a national scandal when at least 8 babies died from drinking milk powder that investigators later found had no nutritional value.

Enteroviruses spread mostly via contact with infected blisters or faeces, and enterovirus 71 outbreaks have occurred in past years in Taiwan, Malaysia and some East European countries.

Usually the virus brings fever and blisters or ulcers inside the mouth and on the limbs. Sometimes it can cause deadly high fever, paralysis and swelling of the brain or its lining.

Drinking water and food in schools, kindergartens and villages around Fuyang are being inspected for possible sources of the virus, the report said.