The Minister of Health officially informs the millions of Romanians throughout the country about the alarming situation that is currently occurring throughout the territory, and this is because the flu epidemic alert weeks have the explanation of the occurrence and intensity provided by Alexandru Rafila.
The Minister of Health talks about what has generated this situation, but also about the measures that are being taken at the moment, including what concerns the return of Tamiflu to pharmacies, the antiviral specially created to fight the flu, which will quickly reach them in the next period, just like in hospitals.
"It was a more difficult period because we had an unexpected increase in the number of cases for this time of the year. The last serious epidemic was in the 2018-2019 season, and then we had no less than 200 deaths in which there was a direct causal link produced by the infection with the influenza virus, but all these epidemic episodes appeared later.
They appeared in February, or at the earliest during the end of January, the beginning of February. In the meantime, due to some peculiarities of the circulation of flu viruses, especially potentiated by the pandemic, this period was advanced, and the large number of viruses registered in Europe, or the USA, started right from December.
We had three consecutive weeks of growth, compared to a maximum expected for this period, we always compare with a multi-year average of this period, but the total number of cases of respiratory viruses recorded in one week is similar, or at least close, to what happened 4 years ago, but in February. It's about a gap.
The overlapping of the holidays with this period with a large number of respiratory viruses also led to the appearance of some syncope in the supply of common, otherwise, antithermic or anti-inflammatory drugs. The discussion now is also related to antivirals. You know that we have an antiviral called Tamiflu, which exists, I checked the other day, I had a discussion with the manufacturer, and I understood that a large quantity was taken over for distribution in pharmacies.
At the moment, we are interested in ensuring the necessary quantities for hospitals as well, because they treat serious forms of flu, and the specification that I made, and on which I insist, without being my invention, or a restriction, the fact that antivirals and antibiotics are released only on the basis of medical prescription, this is the law."
