Flu activity in Bulgaria predicted to start peaking within the next 10 days

Within two weeks, Bulgaria will be on the verge of a flu epidemic, specialists forecast. Stricter measures are not foreseen for now. Probably, only the measures we have known so far during an epidemic will be applied - scheduled and non-urgent medical consultations for children and pregnant women will be suspended, visits to hospitalized patients will not be allowed, requirement for wearing masks in medical institutions will be introduced.

The flu cases are rising and queues outside GP surgeries will increase in the coming days. Within 10 days, we are expected to reach the peak of morbidity. This year, influenza type A viruses are dominant. There are confirmed cases.

The flu symptoms begin with a sudden onset of fever. Children and older people should be more vigilant for complications. Doctors' advice the persons with flu to stay at home and limit their contacts at least in the first 4-5 days when they are most contagious. For the only emergency ENT office in Sofia, at ISUL Hospital, it does not matter whether the flu epidemic has started or not, because there are queues of people all the time.

There is not a minute's break for the doctor on duty in the ENT office at Tsaritsa Ioanna Hospital - ISUL. When someone leaves, another patients arrives. Expectedly, because of the large number of patients, the waiting time in front of the office turns out to be longer than the examination itself.

"There is only one emergency ENT surgery on duty, that's ridiculous. Especially in winter time, when there are all sorts of other respiratory viruses and diseases," says Ivaneta, a mother of a patient.

Most of the cases are not even that urgent, the doctors on duty say.

"There's no way for just one office to provide service for all these patients in Sofia. And they are not only from Sofia... Patients from the region around the capital are regularly being brought in," said Lyubomir Rangachev, an ENT specialist at Tsaritsa Ioanna University Hospital - ISUL - Sofia.

In front of the only emergency ENT surgery in Sofia, the saying "first arrived, first in right" does not always apply. Very often it happens that a child gives his turn to another child in a more urgent condition.

"If there was a children's hospital, we wouldn't be here. Maybe we would have already been examined and maybe at home," says Christina, a mother.

The doctors on duty in the ENT emergency surgeries urge GPs to examine their patients rather than refer them to the emergency room.

"And to inform their patients about the availability of such emergency rooms accordingly, because more than half of the patients don't even know about their existence," doctor Lyubomir Rangachev said.

According to them, a solution to the problem can be found if there are surgeries opened in other hospitals.

"At least one or two of them could be opened, especially those with emergency wards," Lyubomir Rangachev said.

BNT asked the health ministry why there is only one such ENT emergency room for the whole of Sofia and what the procedure is for opening a new one. Our questions are still waiting for an answer.