Swine Flu Will Bring Death to Croatia

Epidemiologist from public health department of Split and Dalmatian county claims that swine flu will hospitalize and kill many people.

Number of swine flu cases has been growing in the past couple of days. One of the reasons for this is increased number of international school trips that sends graduates to various foreign locations. First cases of swine flu were recorded in Split.

According to Jutarnji List, 133 graduates and one teacher required medical treatment for H1N1 virus after returning from their trip to Spain. Dr Jakov Kuljis, epidemiologist of Split and Dalmatia’s public health department, says that patients displayed only mild symptoms and that none of them encountered any significant complications.

Dr. Jakov Kulis also mentions that swine flu is serious and unpredictable disease and that we should brace for increased number of cases as well as possible deaths. However, he claims that health department is well prepared - even for the worst case scenarios.

Infected patients feel weak, they have sore throats, muscle pains, increased temperature and other flu symptoms. As a measure of prevention, their families were also given 'kemoprofilaks', antiviral medicine. Unlike regular flu, swine flu attacks predominantly younger population and especially heart patients, asthma patients, pregnant women and diabetics.

Swine Flu Cases in Rijeka, Dubrovnik and Sisak

According to World Health Organization we should brace for even hasher results. WHO acknowledged that besides increase in number of swine flu patients, we should also expect to see increase in their mortality rates. Dr. Nikola Bradaric, head of infectious diseases department in Split’s KBC hospital confirmed that another case was reported on Monday morning, but he also says that he expects numbers to increase.

This raises the question if school trips to Spain should be postponed, but nobody seems to be tackling the issue just yet. Even Luka Pitalo, director of the travel agency that organizes school trips, is currently in Spain. Due to increased temperature and recorded flu symptoms, students from Dubrovnik decided to stop their Spanish tour and return home. They are negotiating a flight back home in an attempt to prevent further spreading of the disease.

Besides this, seven graduates from Rijeka High School and one of their teachers reported swine flu symptoms after returning from trip to Spain. Their swab samples were sent to Zagreb. The entire bus full of high school graduates from Topusko ended up in Sisak infection department because of reasonable doubt that they might be infected with swine flu virus. Out of 35 Topusko students, nineteen of them were diagnosed with swine flu but they were all released from the hospital and sent home.