Due to a serious increase in cases of flu and acute respiratory viruses in Varna, the Regional Health Inspectorate has declared a flu epidemic in the district as of January 14. This was announced by the director of the inspectorate, Tsonko Paunov, quoted by BTA correspondent Mila Edreva, after a meeting of the Regional Headquarters for Combating Flu.
Varna is first in terms of the number of positive samples, with 240 out of 10,000 tests being positive. The epidemic values have been reached in recent days. The proposal is for students to switch to online learning from January 14 to 19 inclusive. The Ministry of Health must decide whether this will happen. For now, the measure applies only to hospitals and kindergartens.
"As we expected - there is an increase in morbidity. There are 4,600 patients with influenza and respiratory diseases, compared to last year - there were 4,100. Only Varna has the highest number of patients - in an epidemic situation, commented Iva Hristova, director of the National Center for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases.
Meanwhile, from January 14, visits and planned surgeries in hospitals in Varna will be suspended. It is planned that kindergartens and nurseries will continue to accept children, but under increased medical control.
♦ Burgas Municipality is in a pre-epidemic situation. Since November, 100 samples have been sent to laboratories in Sofia. 10% of them are positive. Currently, there are 347 infected per 10,000 population. Children from 0 to 2 years old are most affected. There are enough hospital beds in the medical institutions in the region.
♦ Silistra, Dobrich, Pernik, Sofia region, Smolyan are in a pre-epidemic situation. As for Pernik, it is believed that the peak there has passed, when the positive tests per 10 thousand people were about 300.
The average incidence is 132 positive tests, again based on 10 thousand people. The peak for the country is expected by the end of the month, and there are already queues of people with flu symptoms in front of doctors' offices.
"Perhaps over 50% of the tests come out positive for influenza A. However, the test does not always come back positive if it is given in the first days of symptoms, so it needs to be repeated," stated Gergana Nikolova, a general practitioner.