Wednesday 21 July 2021, 5.28 pm
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UTRECHT – The RS virus is causing full children’s ICUs and operations are being postponed because there are not enough ICU beds. The Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital (WKZ) in Utrecht is also noticing that the pressure is increasing.
According to Louis Bont, the RS virus specialist at the Utrecht hospital, they really have to pull out all the stops. “And this is really going to take a few weeks,” he says.
The RS virus is a cold virus, which hardly causes any problems for most people. But newborn babies can become very stuffy, according to Bont. “It is therefore a huge blow for parents, who are in the maternity period and then their child suddenly has to fight for their life in a children’s ICU.”
Normally it is a virus that shows up in the winter. However, it did not occur last year – probably due to the corona measures – so that women who were pregnant at the time did not come into contact with the virus. Bont: “These women normally build up antibodies, which they also pass on to the baby, but that protection is now lacking in those children.”
According to Bont, that is the reason why the ICs are now full: “Many babies now come into unprotected contact with the virus, which means that they can become very ill from it.”
It is not only busy in the Utrecht hospital, says Bont: “You see that the children’s ICUs are full all over the country, so it is really something that we in the Netherlands think about how we should endure this. “
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