In northern New Jersey and the Philadelphia region, October 30 is referred to as "Mischief Night," where mischievous teens soap car windows, egg houses, adorn trees with toilet paper, and run away after ringing doorbells. In other parts of New Jersey, October 30 is also known as "Cabbage Night" or "Goosey Night." In Camden, New Jersey. Over 130 arsons were committed in that city on the night of October 30, 1991.
It is known as "Gate Night" in Trail, British Columbia, Winnipeg, Canada and as Mat Night in Quebec, Canada, always on the 30 October, the eve of Halloween. It is also commonly known as "Devil's Night" in many places throughout Canada.
In Yorkshire, it is also known as "mischievous night", "Miggy Night", "Tick-Tack Night", "Corn Night", "Trick Night" and "Micky Night". In Liverpool, it is known as "Mizzy Night"(but unlike in Yorkshire, where it is celebrated on October 30th). It was celebrated on Nov 4 in Merseyside during the 1970s, as well as in Manchester after the war.
Mischief night is becoming popular in Ireland, where teenagers get the week around Halloween off school. This means that many of the nights before 31 October are used by teenagers for vandalism.
Modern mischief includes toilet papering gardens and buildings, flouring and egging of cars, people, and homes, "forking" gardens, setting off fireworks and smashing pumpkins and jack-o'-lanterns. Local shops do not sell eggs to chavs around the time of Halloween. Sometimes the damage includes spray-painting of buildings and homes.
People play "Ding-Dong Ditch": in this 'game', people knock on doors and then run and hide.
A 2006 film Mischief Night is based on a night in Leeds, UK.
Dengue fever
Dengue fever (pronounced "DEN-gi") is a tropical infectious disease caused by the dengue virus. People get the dengue virus from mosquitoes. Dengue fever is also called break-bone fever, because it can cause so much pain that people feel like their bones are breaking.
Most people with dengue fever can get better just by drinking enough water. However, a small number of people get dengue hemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome. These are medical emergencies and can kill a person if they do not get medical treatment.
There is no vaccine that can keep people from getting the dengue virus. There is also no treatment to cure dengue fever. Doctors can only provide "supportive care," which means they can only treat dengue's symptoms.
Since the 1960s, many more people have been getting dengue fever. Since World War II, dengue has become a problem around the world. It is common in more than 110 countries. Every year, between 50 million and 100 million people get dengue fever.
Most people who get the dengue virus (80%) have no symptoms, or have only mild symptoms (like a basic fever). About 5% of infected people (or 5 out of every 100) get much sicker. A small number of these people have symptoms that could kill them.
After a person gets the dengue virus from a mosquito, it takes between 3 and 14 days for them to get sick. (This is called the virus's incubation period.) Most often, people start to feel sick after 4 to 7 days.
Often, when children have dengue fever, their symptoms are the same as gastroenteritis (stomach flu), like vomiting and diarrhea, or the common cold. However, children are more likely to have bad complications from dengue fever.
Dengue fever happens in three stages: febrile, critical, and recovery.
In the "febrile stage", people with dengue usually have a high fever. ("Febrile" means that a person has a fever.) The fever is often over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Sometimes the fever gets better, and then comes back.
During the febrile stage, people may also have:
The febrile stage usually lasts 2 to 7 days. This stage ends when a person's high fever is gone.
In about 5% of people with dengue fever, the disease goes into a "critical stage" next. ("Critical" means "very dangerous.") The critical phase usually lasts 1 to 2 days.
During this stage, plasma (the liquid part of blood) leaks out of the body's small blood vessels. The plasma can build up in the chest and abdomen. This is a serious problem for a few reasons.
Plasma carries blood cells, glucose (sugar), electrolytes (salts), and many other important things to the whole body. Every part of the body needs these things to survive. If too much plasma leaks out of the blood vessels, there will not be enough left to carry these things to the body's most important organs. Without these things, the organs cannot work normally. This is called dengue shock syndrome.
Plasma also carries platelets, which help the blood clot (they help stop bleeding). If a person does not have enough platelets, they can have dangerous bleeding. With dengue fever, this bleeding usually happens in the gastrointestinal tract. When a person has bleeding, leaking plasma, and not enough platelets, they have dengue hemorrhagic fever. ("Hemorrhage" means "dangerous bleeding.")
The recovery stage is when the patient's body is overcoming the disease process. In this stage, the plasma that leaked out of the blood vessels is taken back up into the bloodstream. This stage usually lasts 2 to 3 days.
During this stage, people with dengue often feel much better. However, they can have very bad itching and a slow heart rate.
Serious problems can also happen during the recovery stage. If a person's body takes too much fluid back up into the bloodstream, this can cause "fluid overload." This can cause fluid to build up in the lungs, which causes breathing problems. Fluid overload can also cause seizures or an altered mental status (changes in a person's thinking and behavior).
Every once in a while, dengue can affect other systems in the body. For example, dengue can cause:
Dengue fever is caused by the dengue virus. In the scientific system that classifies viruses, the dengue virus is part of the family "Flaviviridae" and the genus "Flavivirus". Other viruses that belong to the same family and can make humans sick include yellow fever virus, West Nile virus, Zika virus, Japanese encephalitis virus, and tick-borne encephalitis virus. Most of these viruses are spread by mosquitoes or ticks.
Dengue virus is spread mostly by mosquitoes from the "Aedes" genus, especially the "Aedes aegypti" species of mosquito. "Aides aegypti" is the most likely type of mosquito to spread dengue, because it likes to live close to humans and feed off of people instead of animals. A person can get the dengue virus from just one mosquito bite.
Sometimes, mosquitoes can also get dengue from humans. If a female mosquito bites someone with dengue, the mosquito may get the dengue virus from the person's blood. After about 8 to 10 days, the virus spreads to the mosquito's salivary glands, which make saliva (or "spit"). Now the mosquito will make saliva that is infected with the dengue virus. When the mosquito bites a human, its infected saliva goes into the human and can give that person dengue.
A person can also get the dengue virus if they get a blood transfusion or organ donation from someone who has the virus. In some countries where dengue is common, like Singapore, between 1.6 and 6 blood transfusions out of every 10,000 spread dengue.
The dengue virus can also be spread from a mother to her fetus during pregnancy, or when the child is born. This is called vertical transmission.
Dengue is usually not spread in any other ways.