Albania is in the midst of a flu epidemic, but fortunately with few complicated cases. Epidemiologist Ilir Alimehmeti shares this opinion, who during an interview with Euronews Albania says that we already expect new cases to fall, but long lines at the doctor’s office will still be present.
“At the end of January and beginning of February we have this maximum of infection cases, which means we expect a decrease in new cases but the trajectory of the most severe cases is much lower than the wave of infections, but which is slightly shifted in time, which means that we still expect many people to go to hospitals and see doctors, and around mid-February this wave of more difficult situations will also fall,” said Ilir Alimehmeti, epidemiologist.
This flu season seems to be more difficult than those in the past two years, in terms of the number of infections, but it is not more difficult than the seasons before the pandemic.
“It’s not that there is a more virulent strain, or a new virus for which there is no immunity and that’s why we look at the hospital situation and we see that we don’t have a big change from one year to the next. We had a strong season before the pandemic, 17-18, this is less than that, remember that the pandemic for 2 years almost eliminated the flu and reduced it a lot and then we have this gradual increase”, – said Alimehmeti.
Referring to the population that is increasingly aging, Alimehmeti says that from one year to the next we expect to have larger infections.
