Flu season: No risk of epidemic, health officials say
Tweet 
Share
The Influenza season begins and Georgia’s health officials encourage people to better protect themselves, try to avoid crowded places and see a doctor in case their flu symptoms are severe.
Head of Georgia’s National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC) Amiran Gamkrelidze summed up the flu situation in the country at a special press beefing today.
He said the intensity of the seasonal influenza was 248 cases per 100 000 population, which he assessed as "normal” and "not even close to epidemic”.
This numbers meant currently about 8,000 people in Georgia had the flu.
Deputy Dead of NCDC Paata Imnadze said the past years’ dynamics showed the epidemic threshold for Georgia was 500 cases per 100 000 population.
"This means currently we only have half of what we can consider as an epidemic outbreak in winter,” Imnadze said.
He, however, said the number of flu cases could increase in February, but this was normal and nothing to panic about.
The NCDC encouraged people to see a doctor if they have temperature higher than 38°C, accompanied with a headache and other flu symptoms.
The agency called on people with chronic diseases to get rid of crowded places to avoid the flu.
The Ebola disease has claimed more than 4,555 lives since the current outbreak began in February however there is a minimal chance the deadly disease will spread to Georgia, says the country’s health professionals.
Three people have died from Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and 12 further cases have been confirmed in Georgia, say experts.
A viral disease is swarming through Georgian schools and kindergartens, forcing education institutions throughout the country to temporarily close.
Georgia’s Health Minister is giving an example to society by offering his work car to doctors so they can visit flu patients isolated at home.Georgia’s Minister of Health Davit Sergeenko announced he will offer his work car to the Republican Hospital in Tbilisi to be used by local doctors to serve patients all over the capital city.
About 200 schools across Georgia have been temporarily closed as a preventive measure to avoid the spread of the seasonal influenza virus.
About 63 cases of influenza have been reported in the last 3 weeks and 95% of them were H1N1, known as the swine flu, reports director of the National Center for Disease Control and Public Health, Amiran Gamkrelidze.
Swine flu (H1N1) has caused one more death in Georgia.
A thirty-nine-year old woman has died in a hospital in Gori, in a town of eastern Georgia, from the flu, doctors say.
Thirteen people have died because of the HINI acute respiratory illness in Georgia, which is also known as swine flu, the Georgian National Disease Control Center says.