Emergency rooms across the US are reporting an alarming spike in cases of a respiratory illness among young children.
RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a common illness that generally causes cold-like symptoms — cough, runny nose and lethargy.
But while it usually amounts to little more than an annoyance for adults, it can have serious consequences for young children, occasionally developing into bronchiolitis, or the inflammation of the small airways in the lungs.
Jorge Gomez, who brought his 3-year-old son to a northern Virginia-area hospital last week after noticing he was having trouble breathing, was surprised by how crowded the waiting room was.
“Getting to the hospital with a toddler is always a stressful experience,” he said. His son ended up being admitted for several days, but not before spending hours waiting for a bed to open up.
The number of RSV cases this year in US are far from normal: typically, there are about 2.1 million outpatient visits among children younger than 5 years old and about 58,000 hospital admissions for the same age group, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Between 100-500 children in this age group die from the disease every year.
At the national level, paediatric bed capacity is the highest it has been in two years, with 71 per cent of the estimated 40,000 beds filled, the Department of Health and Human Services said.
Children’s National Hospital in Washington, Inova Fairfax in northern Virginia and the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland — all of which represent more than 650 beds — are at capacity, physicians at the hospitals told The Washington Post this week.
There is no cure for RSV, aside from time, rest and fluids. Children admitted to hospital are often treated with nebulisers or oxygen to keep their blood oxygenation at a normal level.
The question many parents are asking is why this is happening.
Experts say it may have something to do with the Covid-19 pandemic. When lockdowns, mask-wearing and social distancing measures were in place across much of the country, the circulation of coronavirus as well as other illnesses slowed.
Now that Americans are going back to work — and children are heading back to school and day care — upper respiratory diseases are spreading with greater regularity and peaking at an unusual time of year.
With many children potentially not having been exposed to RSV during the pandemic, their immunity waned. When they returned to the classroom or day care, not only did the disease spread like wildfire but it also hit many harder than usual.
Evidence is building that the US is likely to be hit with a wave of Covid-19 in the coming months, meaning that even after hospitals gain control over the rise in RSV cases, they may still be in for a long winter.
Children receive Covid vaccinations — in pictures
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Water waste
In the UAE’s arid climate, small shrubs, bushes and flower beds usually require about six litres of water per square metre, daily. That increases to 12 litres per square metre a day for small trees, and 300 litres for palm trees.
Horticulturists suggest the best time for watering is before 8am or after 6pm, when water won't be dried up by the sun.
A global report published by the Water Resources Institute in August, ranked the UAE 10th out of 164 nations where water supplies are most stretched.
The Emirates is the world’s third largest per capita water consumer after the US and Canada.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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Reform is a right-wing, populist party led by Nigel Farage, a former MEP who won a seat in the House of Commons last year at his eighth attempt and a prominent figure in the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union.
It was founded in 2018 and originally called the Brexit Party.
Many of its members previously belonged to UKIP or the mainstream Conservatives.
After Brexit took place, the party focused on the reformation of British democracy.
Former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson became its first MP after defecting in March 2024.
The party gained support from Elon Musk, and had hoped the tech billionaire would make a £100m donation. However, Mr Musk changed his mind and called for Mr Farage to step down as leader in a row involving the US tycoon's support for far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson who is in prison for contempt of court.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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