lifethreatening

AS the UK waves goodbye to summer, experts are urging people to take extra precautions to stay healthy.

As winter illnesses start to circulate, one virus parents are being asked to be especially wary of is RSV – as new evidence shows it can be just as risky to healthy babies as those born premature of with underlying health conditions.

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RSV, which stands for respiratory syncytial virus, is a common cause of respiratory infections in young children and accounts for around 245,000 hospital admissions annually in Europe. 

In some cases, it can lead to more severe respiratory issues like bronchiolitis and pneumonia, which can lead to hospitalisation, the need for oxygen or mechanical ventilation, and even death.

Researchers have now analysed data from more than 2.3 million children born in Sweden between 2001 and 2022 to find out who is at greatest risk of suffering serious complications or dying from an RSV infection

Almost all children will get RSV at least once before they’re two years old.

Premature babies and children with chronic diseases are known to be at increased risk of developing severe illness when infected with the virus.

And children under three months of age are also particularly vulnerable – although it hasn’t been entirely clear how common severe disease is among previously healthy children. 

As part of their findings, scientists from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden found the largest group among the children who required intensive care or were hospitalised for a long period of time were under three months of age, previously healthy and born at full term.

“When shaping treatment strategies, it is important to take into account that even healthy infants can be severely affected by RSV,” said the study’s first author, Giulia Dallagiacoma, a physician and doctoral student at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet.

“The good news is that there is now preventive treatment that can be given to newborns, and a vaccine that can be given to pregnant women.”

The NHS RSV vaccine programme was launched in England on September 1, 2024 offering protection to pregnant women from 28 weeks gestation to protect their baby and to older adults aged 75 to 79.

Several factors were linked to an increased risk of needing intensive care or dying by the researchers.

Children who were born in the winter, or had siblings aged 0–3 years or a twin, had approximately a threefold increased risk, while children who were small at birth had an almost fourfold raised risk.

Children with underlying medical conditions had more than a fourfold increased risk of severe illness or death.

“We know that several underlying diseases increase the risk of severe RSV infection, and it is these children who have so far been targeted for protection with the preventive treatment that has been available,” said the study’s last author, Samuel Rhedin, resident physician at Sachs’ Children and Youth Hospital and associate professor at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet.

“However, the study highlights that a large proportion of children who require intensive care due to their RSV infection were previously healthy.

“Now that better preventive medicines are available, it is therefore positive that the definition of risk groups is being broadened to offer protection during the RSV season to previously healthy infants as well.”

In the UK, if you’re pregnant, you should be offered the RSV vaccine around the time of your 28-week antenatal appointment.

If you’re aged 75 to 79 (or turned 80 after 1 September 2024) contact your GP surgery to book your RSV vaccination.

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Spotting RSV symptoms is important to help prevent serious complications.

Most people who get an RSV infection will only get cold-like symptoms, according to the NHS, including the five following signs:

• a runny or blocked nose
• a cough
• sneezing
• tiredness
• a high temperature – signs include your back or chest feeling hotter than usual, sweatiness and shivering (chills)

Babies with RSV may also be irritable and feed less than usual.

But if RSV leads to a more serious infection (such as pneumonia or bronchiolitis) it may also cause a worsening cough, shortness of breath, faster breathing, difficulty feeding in babies, wheezing, and confusion in older adults.

It’s important to note cold-like symptoms are very common in babies and children and aren’t usually a sign of anything serious.

They should get better within a few days.

There’s no specific treatment for an RSV infection as it often gets better on its own in one or two weeks.

If you or your child have mild RSV symptoms, there are some things you can do to help ease symptoms at home, including taking paracetamol or ibuprofen if you have a high temperature and are uncomfortable (giving children’s paracetamol or children’s ibuprofen to your child) and drinking lots of fluids.

But children and adults who get a more serious infection may need to be treated in hospital.

Sept. 7 (UPI) — Hurricane Kiko, packing winds in excess of 110 mph, is forecast to approach the Hawaiian islands early this week, but is predicted to pass to the north, meteorologists said Sunday.

“The forecast track currently for Kiko is to pass north of Hawaii,” the National Weather Service said in a public advisory on social media. “It is still too soon to determine the exact location/magnitude of potential impacts from Kiko. Interests in the island should continue to monitor Kiko’s progress.”

As of Sunday morning, the Category 3 storm was about 715 miles east of Hilo and moving to the west-northwest at about 13 mph, generating what forecasters said could be life-threatening surf in the Hawaiian islands.

Kiko had intensified to a Category 4 hurricane early last week, but was later downgraded as it weakened off the coast. Forecasters said it could degrade into a Tropical Storm by Tuesday, but will still be capable of creating heavy rain, gusty winds and dangerous surf through the first half of the week.

There are currently no watches or warnings in place, the NHC said.

LYING on the track in a tangled mess, Tai Woffinden admits the last thing he remembers is people crying at the extent of his injuries.

The five-times world champion blacked out minutes after the horror crash where he sustained over 15 BROKEN BONES following a high-speed pile-up in Krosno, Poland in late March. 

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Great Britain ace Woffy, 34, was given an emergency helicopter airlift to hospital as fears grew over his survival because of chest injuries and a huge loss of blood.

He was then put in a medically induced coma after three lengthy major operations. 

But two months after fighting for his life, Woffinden is now walking and eight weeks ahead in his gruelling recovery plan in rehab.

In his first interview since the incident, he reveals how he heard the femur bone in his leg snap on impact and that the first people on the scene were in tears on seeing his condition because his arms were “pointing in the wrong direction”. 

He admitted: “I remember everything. In the race that I crashed I made a pretty decent start, so I blipped the throttle a little bit coming into the corner.

“The junior rider off gate one drove over the kerb, ran into the guy that was off gate two, who then collected me.

“As I got collected, as you normally do, you drop it on the side and slide towards the fence. And then while sliding across the track, my bike hit the APD (airfence) first, which lifted it up probably about a metre.

“And the moment I saw that lift, I just went, ‘oh f***’. And then I hit the fence, I heard my femur snap.

“It’s almost like if you’re underwater and you snap a tree branch.

“I then was laid on the track. I remember looking up and seeing everybody around me. The team manager’s face looked like he had seen a ghost.

“One person was crying looking at my body. My arms were pointing all in the wrong direction. My left shoulder was dislocated, pointing upwards.

“My right humerus was shattered at the bottom. My elbow was dislocated and my elbow was broken.

“I actually couldn’t see my hands when I was laying on the track because they were both pointing up.

“So I’m sat there saying, ‘give me some meds’. I was saying ‘bol, bol, bol’ which means pain in Polish just to make sure they knew what I was talking about.

“I don’t know if I passed out from the amount of Fentanyl they’d given me or the amount of blood that I’d lost.”

Woffinden, Britain’s greatest-ever rider, had a double compound right femur fracture, broken back, right humerus compound fracture, dislocated and smashed right elbow, 12 broken ribs,punctured lung, left broken shoulder blade and dislocated left shoulder.

He added: “I remember the blades of the helicopter, the noise of it starting to take off. And then the next thing, I’m in a coma. 

“There were so many injuries, I probably wouldn’t have been able to be awake and deal with the injuries. One of the operations was 12 hours long and I had multiple blood transfusions.

“I thought a coma would have been a pleasant sleep. It was quite the opposite. It was the worst thing I’d ever experienced. It was quite scary at times. I was on sedatives and painkillers and antibiotics.

“I was hallucinating, I was dreaming and having nightmares. Normally you have a nightmare and you wake up. Well, I couldn’t wake up.

“I dealt with some wild s***. I woke up from the coma, and everything that I’d dreamt, I believed it was real. And my wife Faye was like, ‘mate, that didn’t happen’. I was getting angry with Faye because she wasn’t believing me.”

Woffinden refused to be drawn on what the future holds in speedway, his only focus is on full recovery from the huge toll of injuries. 

He added: “There’s so many variables. We need to give it that extra month to heal and then have the CT scan so we can really see what’s going on from all different angles.

“I might need another operation on my humerus in my arm because it was shattered in 27 places. If the metalwork hasn’t helped it knit together, I’ll need another op. 

“I’ve done everything I possibly can. I’ve done four to five hours a day in rehab since I left the hospital. My progress is on another level.

“It’s ridiculous. Where I’m at given the injuries is f*****g phenomenal.

“I would like to ride my bike again, whether that’s competitive or not or just practice, who knows?

“But I just make micro personal goals to keep reaching. Only my recovery comes first.”

AN ALLERGY threat for a popular beef lasagne has led to customers being urged to bin the product.

Health chiefs issued an urgent recall last night after the La Famiglia Rana Slow-Cooked Braised Beef Lasagne was discovered to contain lobster.

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They cited a ‘packaging error’ as the cause of the issue which could impact shoppers with an allergy to crustaceans.

The Food Standards Agency warned that “some packs may contain Prawn & Lobster Lasagne, that contains crustaceans, (prawn and lobster) which are not mentioned on the label.”

Shoppers should look out for the batch code L0B510816 and a use by date of 17 June 2025 for the 700g pack of the product.

The alert said that Giovanna Rana Ltd is “recalling the above product from customers.”

They added: “If you have bought the above product and have an allergy to crustaceans, do not eat it.

“Instead return it to the store from where it was bought for a full refund, even without a receipt.”