Alert sounded for possible disease spread
The areas of Thessaly affected by flooding have been placed under an emergency health surveillance regime. Surveillance for outbreaks of infectious diseases such as gastroenteritis, leptospirosis and hepatitis A is expected to last for several months.
The alert for infectious diseases will last at least until the end of October. According to Christos Hadjichristodoulou, professor of epidemiology and hygiene at the University of Thessaly and president of the National Public Health Organization, “some diseases, such as hepatitis A, require an incubation period of four to six weeks.”
“It is around then that we will know where we are overall,” he told Kathimerini.
Meanwhile, health authorities are also focused on the possibility of outbreaks of leptospirosis, a zoonotic disease carried by many animals, mainly rodents.
“We expect neither typhoid nor malaria. Where we are focusing attention is on leptospirosis because there are many dead rodents and because in Thessaly, in any case, cases of the disease are recorded every year,” Deputy Health Minister Irini Agapidaki told Kathimerini. “We have asked citizens if they show symptoms to seek medical help and we have issued a circular to all health services in the region, which we have equipped with special systems for rapid detection of the pathogen,” she added.
Hadjichristodoulou added that “one of the big problems we have is water, because at any moment the water table can be contaminated. These lakes have sewage and dead animals in them.”
