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Pregnancy vaccine reduces baby hospital admissions for RSV by 80%

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A vaccine during pregnancy which protects newborns against nasty chest infections is cutting hospital admissions of babies by more than 80%, UK health officials say.

A virus, called RSV, affects many babies in the first few months of life and can leave them gasping for breath and struggling to feed, with more than 20,000 babies ending up seriously ill in hospital in the UK every year.

Since 2024, women have been offered a vaccine from 28 weeks of pregnancy to protect their newborns.

A new study analysing the impact of the vaccine shows it gives "excellent protection" to babies when they are most vulnerable to RSV, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) says.

RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) is one of the main reasons young babies are admitted to hospital before the age of one.

Half of newborns catch the virus, which can cause anything from a mild cold to a life-threatening chest infection because of inflammation in the lungs. Small numbers die from it every year.

In babies with bad infections you can see their chest and lungs struggling, as they try to pull enough oxygen in, said Dr Conall Watson, national programme lead for RSV at the UK Healthy Security Agency.

"This is very, very frightening as a parent, frightening with good reason."

The new vaccine was introduced in the UK in 2024 after clinical trials showed it could boost a pregnant woman's immune system enough to pass on protection to the baby through the placenta.

This means babies born to vaccinated pregnant women are protected from the day they are born.

This new study shows the protection is nearly 85% when given at least four weeks before baby is born. Some protection is still possible if the jab is given later than this.

Even a two-week gap between vaccination and birth can be long enough to protect babies born a little early, the study shows.

"If you've got a longer interval between when the vaccine gets given and when baby is born, then you get even better protection," says Dr Watson.

"Get it on time. But if you can't, do get vaccinated all the way through the third trimester."

The study followed nearly 300,000 babies born between September 2024 and March 2025 in England – equivalent to about 90% of all births during that time.

More than 4,500 babies were admitted to hospital. The vast majority were infants whose mothers had not been vaccinated against RSV.

The vaccine didn't come in time for Laine Lewis's son Malachi, now 12 years old. He developed a cold as a baby which deteriorated so much that he was taken to hospital, diagnosed with RSV and put on oxygen. Malachi later stopped breathing and a scan soon after revealed brain damage.

His mum has said it's important his story "doesn't scare people" because what happened to Malachi was very rare.

But she added: "I'd encourage people to take the vaccine for RSV because it will help their child."

Dr Watson said the vaccine could "make a big difference to keeping babies safe" through the winter.

"I would strongly encourage any pregnant woman to discuss it with their midwife, other health professionals, and be ready to have the vaccine at their week 28 appointment, or another vaccine appointment arranged soon after that."

Latest figures show around 64% of pregnant women in England are getting the RSV vaccine, but that falls to 53% in London.

The flu and whooping cough vaccines are also recommended during pregnancy.

Adults aged 75 or over, or who live in a care home for older adults, are also offered the RSV vaccine across the UK.

📰 மூல செய்தி (Source): https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g84nxwz8wo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

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Iran says Strait of Hormuz is 'open' but tracking shows few ships moving

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Iran's foreign minister has said the Strait of Hormuz has reopened for commercial vessels, but added that ships should use designated safe lanes.

Tehran has effectively blocked the key oil shipping channel since the US and Israel attacked the country on 28 February. A ceasefire between the US and Iran is due to expire on 22 April.

US President Donald Trump said a naval blockade of Iranian ports would continue until a peace deal was agreed between the two countries but that it was "a great and brilliant day for the world".

Maritime groups say they are still verifying whether it is safe for vessels to travel through the strait, and tracking shows minimal ship movement.

The announcement by Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, came on Friday – the first full day of a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.

"In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire on the coordinated route as already announced by Ports and Maritime Organisation of the Islamic Rep of Iran," he wrote on X.

Iranian state TV later quoted a "senior military official" as saying that the passage of these vessels would be through a "designated route" and that the passage of military vessels through the Strait would still be "prohibited."

This is likely referring to a map and two routes designated by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and widely reported by Iranian media last week.

Some Iranian news outlets have criticised Araghchi's post. Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC, called it "bad and incomplete", saying such passage would be considered "void" should the US naval blockade continue. Others called for the Iranian authorities to clarify the matter.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who headed Iran's delegation in the recent talks with the US in Islamabad, said on X that Donald Trump "made seven claims in one hour, all seven of which were false".

On the Strait of Hormuz, he said that, with the "continuation of the [US] blockade", the Strait "will not remain open".

Iran is an ally of Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim political and military group based in southern Lebanon. Israel launched strikes on Lebanon on 2 March in response to those carried out by Hezbollah, which itself was retaliating against the US and Israel for its attacks on Iran.

Meanwhile, Trump said talks with Iran to end the war would continue over the course of the weekend, adding that he did not think there were too many significant differences between the two sides.

It comes after Iran's foreign ministry said the country's stockpile of enriched uranium would not be transferred "anywhere under any circumstances", denying Trump's claim on Friday that the regime had agreed to hand it over to the US.

Trump also told CBS News, the BBC's US partner, that no ground troops would be needed to remove the enriched uranium, saying that the US and Iran would "work together to go get it".

"And then we'll take it to the United States," he added.

About 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) usually passes through the strait, but the number of ships transporting this has dramatically decreased during the recent hostilities. Iran has threatened to attack tankers and other ships, as well as warning that it has laid mines.

This has sent shock waves across the global economy, causing fuel prices to soar. While the cost of oil plummeted on Friday following Araghchi's announcement, questions remain about the validity of it and whether a temporary reopening would allow ships to transit through.

"I need further clarification for the shipping industry that there will be no risks for the ships to navigate and it will be in accordance with international law," Arsenio Dominguez, the head of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), told BBC World Business report.

The IMO has information that some ships have started to sail but that it still needed to verify this as "some ships turn off their identification systems in order not to be targeted", he said.

Cormac McGarry, director for maritime security at the consultancy firm Control Risks, said he was "no more optimistic than he was yesterday" about the strait reopening, despite Araghchi's announcement.

He told BBC's 5 Live Drive that the statement "basically changes nothing" as the implicit threat of mines remain.

"Right now, the scenarios are looking pretty bleak for shipping over the next few weeks," McGarry added.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Friday that his country and France would lead a multinational mission to protect commercial shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz.

Speaking after a meeting of 49 countries, Starmer underlined the work would be "strictly peaceful and defensive" and would only be put in place once fighting in the region ends.

📰 மூல செய்தி (Source): https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwydexp39ddo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

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Orbán's era was over in a flash and Hungary's next PM is a man in a hurry

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Péter Magyar and his victorious Tisza party have wasted no time preparing for the transfer of power in Hungary after their dramatic landslide defeat of Viktor Orbán last Sunday.

They won 52% of the vote to put an end to his party's 16 years of continuous rule, which translates into up to 140 seats in the 199-seat National Assembly.

Orbán's Fidesz have slumped from 135 to about 55 seats.

The count will be finalised on Saturday – including recounts in closely tied constituencies, and votes cast abroad.

Magyar has won a pledge from President Tamás Sulyok to bring forward the formation of the new parliament to the week beginning 4 May. Parliament can then elect the new government.

He also gave combative interviews to public service TV and radio, which have largely ignored or attacked him for the past two years.

He has promised to pass laws to suspend their news programmes, until impartial editors can be appointed.

Armed with a so-called super-majority of more than two-thirds of seats in parliament, he also plans retroactively to limit the number of terms a prime minister can serve to two.

Viktor Orbán has already served five. If that goes through, Magyar could slam the door on Orbán's return.

It was not until late on Thursday that Orbán finally broke his silence after Sunday's defeat, in an interview on the Patrióta YouTube channel.

"This is the end of an era," said Hungary's beaten leader. "We must bear this defeat with dignity."

He spoke of feeling "pain and emptiness" about the defeat, taking full personal responsibility for what happened. But he offered no analysis of the main mistakes of his campaign, other than the failure to finish the Russian-designed Paks 2 nuclear power station, which is running six years behind schedule.

A meeting of the top leadership of Fidesz is scheduled for 28 April, ahead of a party congress in June.

In the interview, Orbán said he would continue to lead Fidesz if he was re-elected, but added the party needed "a complete renewal".

Of the rump of 55 seats Fidesz will occupy in the new Parliament, currently only 12 are from individual constituencies, and the rest are from the party lists.

Many of the new deputies on the party lists should be replaced, as they were not suited to working in opposition, he said. There have already been some calls for change, in a party where dissent is rarely expressed in public.

"I think [Orbán] does not have to resign at the moment," said András Cser-Palkovics, Fidesz mayor of the western city of Székesfehérvár. "He should wait for the national caucus and then start assessing [the result]. Then we should have a leadership election."

There is no obvious successor to Orbán in the party, and none with his skill or charm at integrating different opinions and ambitions.

US and British advisers criticised the main Fidesz campaign slogan "the safe choice", because it would alienate young voters.

But it was hard for a party in power for so long, to present itself to the voters as the party of change, one source told the BBC.

In response, two younger politicians, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, 47, and Transport Minister János Lázár, 51, often appeared at Orbán's rallies. But rather than reinvigorating the party, their dynamism just made its leader seem old and tired.

Orbán will be 63 next month, but the wear and tear of 38 years in frontline politics are obvious to even his hardcore supporters.

There is a mood of fear and recrimination in the governing party.

Rumours of imminent arrests for corruption swirl around Budapest. On social media, Tisza supporters are impatient for those who grew rich illegally under the previous government to be held to account.

"My message to Fidesz leaders and their stooges: It's no use playing the innocent little ballet girl now, and acting as if nothing happened," he posted on Facebook. "We know what you've done to our beloved homeland and the Hungarian people. And don't doubt for a single moment that 'you will reap what you sow'."

In downtown Budapest, just about every single Fidesz poster has been defaced. On many, the word, Vége – the end – has been spray-painted. Others have been ripped, and redecorated with expletives.

The party's sudden fall from grace in the eyes of the population, even of some erstwhile supporters, has been spectacular.

The tough tone of the incoming Tisza leaders appears to be both emotional and tactical.

They are taking revenge for the campaign of demonisation which the government-controlled Central European Press and Media Foundation (Kesma) has orchestrated against them and against Magyar personally. Kesma includes 476 titles, of which around 50 are primarily news outlets.

One of the first problems Tisza faces is to stop money being taken out of the country by businessmen close to the ruling party. Dubai is a favourite destination of Hungarian oligarchs.

Another is to prevent the destruction of evidence of corruption, for example in government ministries.

While papers are shredded in some offices, two Tisza insiders told the BBC, officials are offering Tisza pen drives with digital copies, in exchange for keeping their jobs, or immunity from prosecution.

In the week before the election, as opinion polls consistently predicted a big opposition majority, Tisza claims dozens of contracts were signed with favoured companies, committing the state to future IT, research, construction and other projects.

With their new, two-thirds majority, they will be able to pass laws to restore checks and balances eroded or destroyed by Fidesz in the past 16 years.

In his campaign, Magyar promised to establish an office to recover stolen state assets.

This week, he repeated his promise to join the Luxembourg-based European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO). That would help prove to the EU that he is eager to fight corruption, but it only has the power to investigate the misuse of EU funds.

He has also held talks with Zsolt Hernádi, CEO of MOL, the Hungarian energy giant, which operates two refineries in Hungary and Slovakia, on which both countries depend.

The urgent restoration of oil supplies through the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline from Russia across Ukraine, is one of the few subjects on which Magyar and Viktor Orbán agree. It has been closed down since late January, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week the oil could start flowing by the end of the month.

Hungary's incoming prime minister says he wants to diversify Hungary's oil supplies, especially by making better use of an alternative pipeline from the Croatian island of Krk.

Almost three-quarters of 18-29 year-olds are estimated to have backed Tisza, and a former Hungarian ambassador to the US under Orbán, Réka Szemerkényi, told the BBC she was impressed by the messages that Hungary's younger generation had conveyed to their new leaders.

"'Ria, Ria Hungaria', meaning we love our country," was one, said Szemerkényi, now at the Equilibrium Institute in Budapest. "Then the chants of 'Europa', and the third I heard repeatedly was 'Russians go home'. These three together are like a foreign policy agenda."

On Friday, a high level delegation from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's office arrived in Budapest for informal talks with Tisza officials, led by Péter Magyar.

To access €17bn (£15bn) in EU funds, withheld from the Orbán government, his new government will need to meet 27 criteria – on independence of the judiciary, tackling corruption, and liberating the media from government control.

Hungary's economy is in a deep slump, and Magyar and his team know they will have to hit the ground running.

📰 மூல செய்தி (Source): https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g40npz37lo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

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Endangered British dishes – and the home cooks reviving them

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Ever heard of carrageenan pudding? No? Neither had food content creator Annie Mae Herring until a few weeks ago.

"It was awful," says the 33-year-old from Essex. "It was a soggy welly, with, like, Fairy Liquid and a bit of salt."

A milk-based dessert similar in appearance to a blancmange, the pudding uses carrageen moss – a type of seaweed found in coastal areas – to give it a gelatinous texture.

"Maybe I did it wrong, and I will absolutely throw my hands up in the air," Herring admits, before adding jokingly that, either way, it "may die a fiery death".

This pudding is one of many dishes Herring has been making and posting to her followers, as part of a social media series exploring endangered and lost recipes from the UK and Ireland.

Other dishes include a Staffordshire clanger – a half-sweet, half-savoury pasty she describes as "wonderfully strange"; Brown Windsor soup, which is associated with the Victorian royals; and chocolate concrete, a school-dinner classic Herring paired with a radioactive green custard, reminiscent of her own school days.

Herring has been making food content for a decade, but nothing has captivated her audience as much as this most recent series. Many of her viewers recall eating these dishes as children.

"Thanks for the trip down memory lane: we used to have this at primary school – it was my absolute favourite," one follower commented on a video of a Sussex pond pudding, which has a whole lemon encased inside a steamed suet pastry.

"Each table of six children had a whole one. One child was the server of the day, who sliced it into portions.

"We had a large slice each with custard poured by the pourer of the day."

Another commented on a video of an Eve's pudding, a cake batter baked with apples: "I think this is the dessert my grandmother always made for Sunday lunch!

"But as she grew up in the Depression and never had cream for the table, the family served it with milk. Now I just don't know how you could eat it if not with a splash of milk on top."

Herring says she had expected a little bit of nostalgia, but it's been "overwhelming just how emotional people have been".

Herring isn't the only one delving into the UK's culinary history.

Shannon McCarthy, a self-described "goth baker" from Barnsley, has been exploring old regional recipes from across the country.

Dishes she's made range from panackelty, a stew consisting of potatoes, onions and corned beef, to Staffordshire oatcakes, a type of yeasted pancake, and Lancashire hotpot, made with mutton or lamb. All have evoked strong emotions among her followers.

"People love them so much, they can't believe that other people haven't heard of them," she says.

Dr Neil Buttery, a chef and food historian, says these "hyper-regional" dishes are among those most at risk of disappearing.

Others include jugged hare and flummery – an oat-based fermented jelly, associated with farmhouse production and poverty.

Some endangered dishes aren't quite so obscure, however.

Buttery says there are some we probably recognise the names of but probably couldn't describe in detail and wouldn't really cook any more – like spotted dick.

While some of these dishes can be found on the menus of high-end restaurants focusing on British cooking, he argues the bar in deciding whether they are endangered or not often lies in whether people still regularly make them at home.

Herring worries some of these rarer dishes may soon disappear altogether.

"It's important we know that these recipes exist before they entirely disappear," she says. "They provide a snapshot of a different time".

But not everyone feels all dishes need to be revered to the same degree.

Chef and restaurant owner Anna Tobias is a champion of old-school British desserts, which often feature on her restaurant Café Deco's menu. While she says they are often best-sellers, she feels that there are some recipes that deserve to be relegated to history.

"Ultimately, the recipe has to be good – there are some really awful ones," she says, referencing strange combinations she has seen in cookbooks, including banana and herring and lamb and crab.

"Classic dishes are classic for a reason," she continues, "because they're good.

"Because they've been tried and tested – and accepted."

One business cashing in on a classic regional dish is La Rondine bakery in Bedford.

It sells a former school-dinner staple known as chocolate toothpaste. A sweet tart filled with a chocolate paste made with cocoa and milk powders.

Carlo Garganese, who runs the bakery alongside his father, Salvatori, says he believes the tarts are so popular – with the bakery selling 1,000 a week – because anyone who went to school in Bedford will fondly remember eating them at lunchtime.

"I think that's carried over into their adulthood," he says.

One business that sells steamed savoury suet puddings, an old-school British classic, worries memories of days gone by may not be enough to keep their puddings going in the long term.

Matthew Botley, head of operations at Kentish Mayde, says he can see a time when the puddings will "get forgotten as a British food".

While the puddings are popular among an older demographic, younger people don't tend to buy them, he says.

"I think we've got a few years of it yet, but I can see a time when the people who are eating them are no longer around."

While nostalgia is "massively" important in preserving endangered dishes, Buttery says, "you've got to pass it down, so that the next generation below you, or even the next one down from there, can also feel nostalgic about it in 50 years time.

Photographs copyright of Annie Mae Herring and Shannon McCarthy

📰 மூல செய்தி (Source): https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cje4pl85pxwo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

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