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BEIJING — A fast-spreading viral outbreak in eastern China has killed 21 children, sickened nearly 3,000 others and caused panic among parents in an impoverished corner of Anhui Province, government health officials said Friday.

All of the fatalities have been in children younger than 6, the majority of them under 2.

The outbreak, caused by an intestinal virus, has been spreading in the city of Fuyang since early March but local health officials only announced the outbreak last week, raising questions about whether they were trying to conceal it.

In recent days, the Chinese media has heavily criticized the government response, offering comparisons to the SARS epidemic of 2003, which drew widespread attention to China’s shaky public health system and official attempts to cover up the outbreak. The official Xinhua news agency published the latest figures on Friday.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization warned that the disease, which thrives in warm weather and passes easily between children, could spread in the coming summer months. It advised child-care centers and schools in the city and surrounding region to stay closed until the spread of new infections was curtailed.

The virus, commonly know as hand, foot and mouth disease, has no relation to the foot-and-mouth disease that infects livestock. The illness begins with a fever and often leads to mouth ulcers and to blisters on the hands, feet and buttocks. There is no vaccine or cure but most patients recover in a week without treatment. In severe cases, however, brain swelling can lead to paralysis or death. Rigorous hygiene dramatically reduces the spread of the pathogen.

Health officials in Fuyang say that more than 700 children remain hospitalized, 36 of them in serious condition.

Although the number of infected children has been steadily climbing, the fatality rate has dropped substantially in recent weeks, falling to 0.2 percent from 11 percent in March, according to World Health Organization officials.

Anxious parents have been overwhelming local hospitals in Fuyang, a hardscrabble city of 170,000 people. In a telephone interview, a doctor at No. 2 People’s Hospital said health care workers were coping with 200 sick children. He said there had not been any fatalities in the past five days. “I think the disease itself can be controlled but it is hard to treat if there are complications,” said the doctor, who would only give his surname, Li.

Among parents, though, there is still widespread concern and confusion. Reached by phone, the father of a 1-year-old boy said misinformation was rife. The current rumor, he said, suggested that a local river was the source of the infection. The man, a truck driver named Wang, said schools had been closed and local health officials were instructing parents to frequently wash their children’s hands. “We really hope journalists can come and report more on this,” he said.

Since early April, teachers at the Dongfanghong kindergarten have been assiduously spraying children and classrooms with a disinfectant daily. Still, by Tuesday, when the authorities shut the school, nearly 100 of the school’s 500 students were being kept home by their parents. “A lot of parents are concerned about the contagiousness,” said Xu Yanyan, the school’s headmistress.

Four years ago, Fuyang was the epicenter of a powdered milk scandal. Fake formula lacking nutritional value sickened 200 infants, and starved 13 to death.

The Chinese media has not been shy about lambasting health officials. In mid-April, they noted, local officials who were confronted by reporters denied there was a problem. Two weeks later, after more than a dozen children had died, they were forced to acknowledge the outbreak.

In an editorial headlined “Tragic Costs of Delay,” the state-run China Daily cited the SARS epidemic and the powdered milk scandal and chastised government for its sluggish response to the most recent health crisis. “The memory of the last tragedy only adds to the bitterness of the new one,” it said.

During the SARS outbreak, Chinese officials withheld information from the World Health Organization, restricted media reporting and undercounted the cases of those stricken. After the disease spread beyond China’s borders and provoked worldwide panic, the government apologized and pledged to confront future health emergencies with greater openness.

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