CDC: Georgia is on the verge of a pandemic


“Would you make out with your girlfriend/boyfriend if you knew she/he had swine flu?” a new entry on the most popular Georgian discussion website, www.forum.ge, says. The answers were certainly mixed. But one of the users was passionately ready to commit a heroic act, saying “your beloved one deserves self-sacrifice and even death.”

Putting aside the irony of the forums.ge posts, the H1N1 virus has not led to any deaths in Georgia so far. A total of 147 laboratory-confirmed cases had been reported by 6pm on November 27. But officials find the spike in flu-like illnesses worrisome, warning Georgia is on the verge of a swine flu pandemic.

According to the National Centre for Disease Control, the rate of diagnosis of flu-like illnesses was 107.1 per 100,000 people between October 19-25 but shot up three-fold to 324.7 per 100,000 people between November 16-22. The CDC says it will confirm the presence of a pandemic when the rate exceeds 500 per 100,000 people. “The dynamics of the rise in influenza-like diseases suggests this day will soon arrive,” Shota Tsanava, General Director of the National Centre for Disease Control, told GT.

58 out of the 147 people infected contracted the virus abroad while 89 caught it locally. 22 of them were infected in Europe, 17 in Ukraine, 8 in Turkey and the remaining 5 in the US and other countries. The Georgian health authorities expect swine flu will peak in January but assure us that they are ready to deal with it. The measures they are using include training emergency and hospital doctors, providing enough stockpiles of medicine and raising awareness in the wider population of risks and preventive measures.

So far the two most popular preventive measures for Georgians seem to be face masks and garlic. With the number of reported swine flu cases on the rise, Georgians apparently took on the drug stores last week. For instance, two out of five chemists on Marjanishvili Street told GT that they had run out of health masks but promised to stockpile them in the next few days. Garlic enjoys a widely acknowledged reputation among Georgians as the best defence against influenza. No wonder: a number of international sources also confirm the antibiotic properties of garlic. To name just one, Popular Natural Remedies by Wright State University says that garlic is approximately one per cent as potent an antibiotic as penicillin. Moreover, AP reported on November 23 that the Moldovan Army had added garlic and onions to its soldiers’ daily diet to fend off swine flu.

While people identify their preferred preventive measures the Georgian Health Ministry is undecided whether to import swine flu vaccine. The Ministry is currently in talks with The World Health Organisation (WHO) and waiting for its recommendations.

“The WHO is likely to provide around 400,000 swine flu vaccines as of January or February, after the vaccines go through registration,” said Zura Utiashvili, Head of Health Ministry’s Department for Emergencies, in an interview with GT. “But vaccine is not important for us: a safe vaccine is important for us. Many countries have registered this vaccine at national level but we cannot decide to do this on our own. You know that Canada has stopped vaccinating because of the vaccine’s side effects. So, we are now waiting for the recommendations from the WHO.”

The WHO downplayed alarm that the virus had mutated last week and assured the public that Tamiflu remains highly effective in the vast majority of cases. So before Georgia decides to get a swine flu shot in February it has stockpiled supplies of Tamiflu. Roche Holding AG’s representatives held a training session for journalists last week explaining that the medicine is effective but warned it can be dangerous for the treatment of people under 18 without a doctor’s permission.

“We do not want people to be relaxed but we do not want them to panic either,” Health Minister Sandro Kvitashvili told doctors at a recent meeting. Georgians do not seem to be panicking so far but worries remain in place. The administration of school number 161 did not shut down the school after a new case was reported there [the third one at this school already] but pupil attendance ‘shrank considerably.’

According to the Georgian health authorities Tbilisi saw a flu pandemic in 2003, when 14,000 people consulted medical institutions and the schools were shut down for two weeks. “The situation is different now,” says Health Minister Sandro Kvitashvili.