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BEIRUT: Forget colorful leaves. Any caregiver knows that the real signs of fall are kids with coughs, sneezes and sniffles.
Autumn marks the start of respiratory virus season, when colds, flu and other bugs start circulating — especially among the very young.
A recent study confirmed what many families intuitively know: The littlest students harbor the most germs.
Children in pre-kindergarten and elementary school showed highest rates of virus detection compared with older students and staff, according to research published in the journal Pediatrics.
“Young children can have up to 10 respiratory viruses a year as their immune systems are introduced to different infections for the first time,” said Dr. Jennifer Goldman, a pediatrician at Children’s Mercy hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, who co-led the study.
Younger kids were more likely to have virus detected
Goldman and her colleagues analyzed nasal swabs and symptom reports from more than 800 students and staff in a large school district in Kansas City from November 2022 to May 2023.
They found that overall, more than 85 percent of all participants had at least one respiratory virus detected during that time and more than 80 percent had an episode of acute respiratory illness — though not necessarily at the same time.
More telling, 92 percent of pre-K and elementary school kids had a virus detected, compared with about 86 percent of middle school students, about 77 percent of high school students and 76 percent of staff.
The pre-K kids, ages 3 to 5, had the highest rates of actual illness, too, the study found.
Most of the viruses were the kinds that cause the common cold, including rhinovirus, which was found in 65 percent of participants, and types of seasonal coronavirus detected in about 30 percent. The virus that causes COVID-19 was found in about 15 percent of those studied.
Study confirms the experiences of pediatricians who are parents
The new study provides a baseline look at the burden of viruses in school settings, Goldman said.
It also confirms the real-world experience of pediatricians who are parents, like Dr. Nicole Torres of the University of Miami Health System.
“I can say this for my own children, who are now in their teens: They were sicker when they were younger,” she said.
The study also squares with older research that found that young kids play a key role in spreading respiratory viruses at home. Dr. Carrie Byington was co-author of a University of Utah study, published in 2015, that recruited 26 households to take nasal samples from everyone living in a home, every week, for a year.
That study found that children younger than 5 had virus detected for half of the weeks of the year, recalled Byington, who is now with the University of California, San Diego.
“And if you live in a household with multiple children, that proportion just goes higher, so it can appear as if someone is always sick,” she said.
How to prevent illness — or at least try to
Preventing illness in children at school or at home can be tough, experts acknowledge.
Being up to date on vaccinations for COVID-19 and influenza is important, they said. So is frequent handwashing, learning to cover coughs and keeping hands away from the eyes, nose and mouth. Cleaning and sanitizing frequently touched surfaces and objects and optimizing fresh air are also key.
When little ones do get sick, the best treatment is often supportive care like extra fluids and rest. In serious cases, medical providers may recommend medications to reduce fever or antiviral drugs.
It can take a couple weeks, however, for lingering symptoms like coughs to completely resolve. By then, the child may well have another cold.
“I do tell parents of younger children to expect them to be ill once every month, every month and a half,” Torres said. “It’ll seem that way.”

CAPE TOWN: A Cuban man deported by the United States to the African nation of Eswatini is on a hunger strike at a maximum-security prison having been held there for more than three months without being charged or having access to legal counsel under the Trump administration’s third-country program, his US-based lawyer said Wednesday.
Roberto Mosquera del Peral was one of five men sent to the small kingdom in southern Africa in mid-July as part of the expanding US deportation program to Africa, which has been criticized by rights groups and lawyers, who say deportees are being denied due process and exposed to rights abuses.
Mosquera’s lawyer, Alma David, said in a statement sent to The Associated Press that he had been on a hunger strike for a week, and there were serious concerns over his health.
“My client is arbitrarily detained, and now his life is on the line,” David said. “I urge the Eswatini Correctional Services to provide Mr. Mosquera’s family and me with an immediate update on his condition and to ensure that he is receiving adequate medical attention. I demand that Mr. Mosquera be permitted to meet with his lawyer in Eswatini.”
An Eswatini government spokesperson referred the AP, which requested comment, to a correctional services official, who didn’t immediately respond to calls and messages.
Mosquera was among a group of five men from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen deported to Eswatini, an absolute monarchy ruled by a king who is accused of clamping down on human rights. The Jamaican man was repatriated to his home country last month, but the others have been kept at the prison for more than three months, while an Eswatini-based lawyer has launched a case against the government demanding they be given access to legal counsel.
Civic groups in Eswatini have also taken authorities to court to challenge the legality of holding foreign nationals in prison without charge. Eswatini said that the men would be repatriated, but have given no timeframe for any other repatriations.
US authorities said they want to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Eswatini under the same program.
The men sent to Eswatini were criminals convicted of serious offenses, including murder and rape, and were in the US illegally, the US Department of Homeland Security said. It said that Mosquera had been convicted of murder and other charges and was a gang member.
The men’s lawyers said they had all completed their criminal sentences in the US, and are now being held illegally in Eswatini, where they haven’t been charged with any offense.
The US Department of Homeland Security has cast the third-country deportation program as a means to remove “illegal aliens” from American soil as part of US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, saying they have a choice to self-deport or be sent to a country like Eswatini.
The Trump administration has sent deportees to at least three other African nations — South Sudan, Rwanda and Ghana — since July under largely secretive agreements. It also has a deportation agreement with Uganda, although no deportations there have been announced.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said that it has seen documents that show that the US is paying African nations millions of dollars to accept deportees. It said that the US agreed to pay Eswatini $5.1 million to take up to 160 deportees and Rwanda $7.5 million to take up to 250 deportees.
Another 10 deportees were sent to Eswatini this month and are believed to be held at the same Matsapha Correctional Complex prison outside the administrative capital, Mbabane. Lawyers said that those men are from Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Cuba, Chad, Ethiopia and Congo.
Lawyers say the four men who arrived in Eswatini on a deportation flight in July haven’t been allowed to meet with an Eswatini lawyer representing them, and phone calls to their US-based attorneys are monitored by prison guards. They have expressed concern that they know little about the conditions in which their clients are being held.
“I demand that Mr. Mosquera be permitted to meet with his lawyer in Eswatini,” David said in her statement. “The fact that my client has been driven to such drastic action highlights that he and the other 13 men must be released from prison. The governments of the United States and Eswatini must take responsibility for the real human consequences of their deal.”