Doctors say that Kyiv may avoid an influenza and acute respiratory infection epidemic this year.
"I wouldn’t say that we would exceed the epidemic threshold in late January – I guess not," Chief State Sanitary Doctor of Kyiv Oleksandr Ponomarenko said during a press conference in Kyiv on Jan. 17.
According to him, last week some 22,600 people caught flu and acute respiratory infections in Kyiv, which is 1.7 times lower than the epidemic threshold. The situation might considerably worsen only if the weather gets much colder or a mass delivery of agents of disease due to the arrival of a lot of ill people occurs.
"The situation with flu in Kyiv is controllable and stable," Ponomarenko said.
He added that in 99% of cases of laboratory confirmation of cases of flu, only one type of B virus was discovered. This strain is of a type that is less dangerous than AH1N1, which caused the pandemic in 2009.
According to Ponomarenko, a total of 16,000 people have undergone flu vaccination in Kyiv, with some 10,500 of them vaccinated at the expense of the budget. In 2009 only 6,600 people underwent vaccination.
