THE Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Belfast is admitting emergency cases only following an epidemic of bronchiolitis. Some 35 babies, including three in intensive care, are being treated for the virus which affects the lungs.
The babies are all under one year. Operations have been cancelled for the next nine days as staff work to contain the illness.
The hospital's clinical director, Dr Connor Mulholland said normal admissions would be resumed as soon as possible. Bronchiolitis was an acute respiratory infection which could be fatal, he said.
"It affects the small airways in the lungs and sometimes leads to pneumonia if not caught in time. It is not spread so much through coughing as through contact with other human beings."
Symptoms include coughing, mucous on the chest, and wheezing. Another nine babies are being treated for the virus at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald, east Belfast.
It has yet to limit its admissions. Craigavon Area Hospital in co Armagh would not give figures for the number of children it had admitted with the illness, but a spokeswoman said patients with the virus would be isolated so the children's ward could remain open.