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Inside Health

Respiratory Syncytial Virus; Coronavirus Vaccine; Unnecessary Vaginal Examinations; Compassion Fatigue

Inside Health

BBC

Health & Fitness, Science

4.4575 Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's not a household name but RSV or Respiratory Syncytial Virus is responsible for 30,000 children under five ending up in hospital every year in the UK. The virus can cause serious infections of the lungs and airways (like pneumonia and bronchiolitis). Hannah and Sean from Oxfordshire had baby girls, Millie and Freya, born prematurely in October last year. Just weeks later, the twins spent 12 days in intensive care and then 3 days in the high dependency unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford with bronchiolitis caused by RSV. Andrew Pollard, Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity at the University of Oxford tells James, the BBC's Science and Health Correspondent, about the dangers of RSV in lower income settings where the virus claims more babies' lives under 12 months old than any other disease apart from malaria. Hopes are that a vaccine for RSV to protect children during the vulnerable first years is imminent.

And as one of the world's leading experts on vaccinations (and chair of the UK's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation) Professor Pollard tells James that he is confident that a vaccine for the coronavirus, which some experts have suggested could become a pandemic, could be developed by the end of this year.

Inside Health regular contributor Dr Margaret McCartney raises the issue of unnecessary vaginal examinations. A new American study in JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that more than half of the bimanual pelvic examinations performed on girls and women aged 15 to 20 in the USA are potentially unnecessary and could cause harm. The fact this is still routine for many American women contradicts clear guidance which states there is no evidence for such internal examinations to be carried out in healthy girls and women who don't have symptoms. It doesn't happen in the NHS, Margaret reports, but they are carried out in the private sector under the banner of "well women checks".

Could you tell somebody that they were going to die? Could you comfort family members after their loved one has passed away? Crucially could you do this as part of your job, day in, day out, without it affecting you? James talks to nurses at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Surrey which has been raising "compassion fatigue" as an occupational hazard within the profession.

Producer: Fiona Hill

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast,

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The Traitors Uncloaked. But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's

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from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Rommas Sh Ranga Nathan. However, and maybe I'm biased,

0:21.9

it's really all about the traitors uncloked.

0:24.3

So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts,

0:27.4

listen only on BBC Sounds.

0:30.8

BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.

0:34.5

This is a download from the BBC.

0:36.7

To find out more, visit BBC.com.uk slash radio four.

0:42.3

Hello. This week we have the virus everybody's talking about and the virus almost nobody's heard of.

0:48.6

And what happens when compassion fatigue leaves nurses unable to care for their patients?

0:54.1

Anybody listening last week will remember our resident GP Margaret McCartney. Passion fatigue leaves nurses unable to care for their patients.

0:59.7

Anybody listening last week will remember our resident GP Margaret McCartney came to us from her sickbed.

1:07.0

I'm very ill. I feel absolutely terrible. So thank you for arranging this call rather than dragging me over to Pacific Queen Glasgow.

1:28.9

You can really hear it in Margaret's voice there. So this week, Margaret, how are you sounding? How are you feeling? Much better. Thank you so much for asking you. Much better. Back to full strength. Back at work. Okay. And firing on all cylinders, what have you got for this program? Let's hope. So this week we're going to be looking at research that's been published from America suggesting that many women in the US are having completely unnecessary vaginal examinations done as a matter of routine. So we're going to interrogate that paper and ask whether the same kind of thing

1:32.8

is also happening over here. But first, let's talk viruses. This one isn't coronavirus,

1:39.1

and it's certainly not an emerging threat. Instead, it's widespread around the world. Of all the infections that

1:45.8

kill babies, this one comes second only to malaria. And yet, I'm prepared to bet most

1:51.8

of you have not heard of it. I know I hadn't until it hit my daughter two years ago. I'm talking

1:57.0

about RSV, or respiratory-sensitial virus.

2:01.6

Andrew Pallard is Professor of Pediatric Infection and Immunity at the University of Oxford.

...

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