Visitors from Australia and other parts of the southern hemisphere, where the flu is tearing through the community, have contributed to a flu outbreak in the Cyclades islands, impacting on the key tourist destinations Paros and Ios.
“In my previous shift, of the 100 cases that came to the emergency room, about 45 had influenza. They had a respiratory infection that was not Covid-19,” a GP at the Paros Health Centre told Kathimerini.
The vice president of the National Public Health Organization (EODY), Giorgos Panagiotakopoulos, explained that there has been an upsurge in influenza [compared to] pre-pandemic summers.
University of Athens Vice Rector Athanasios Tsakris, the director of the university’s Microbiology Laboratory, drew parallels with summer of 2009, when the pandemic of the H1N1 flu strain appeared.
This related to the sharp increase in travel, coupled with the fact that people have not been in contact with influenza for more than two years. Immunity against the virus has weakened.
Experts in Greece and abroad were expecting and warned of a flu surge since last autumn, with evidence from the Southern Hemisphere, where the rate of flu infection far exceeded the pre-COVID data.