Coughs, cold, fever at epidemic level

UNUSUALLY large numbers of people are falling ill with sore throats, the common cold, fever and diarrhoea - numbers large enough to classify the infections as an epidemic.

Polyclinics see roughly 20 per cent of primary care patients, so the Ministry of Health (MOH) uses its patient numbers to gauge the level of infectious illnesses in the country.

When the numbers at polyclinics top 17,032 cases a week in the case of acute respiratory infections (ARI), it is severe enough to be classified as an epidemic.

Last week, polyclinics saw more than 20,000 patients with such problems - an indication that the infections have passed the epidemic threshold and are now spreading rapidly in the community.

Last week, 18,377 patients turned up at polyclinics with ARI, a term used to cover a range of infections such as the common cold, influenza, bronchitis and pneumonia. This is almost 1,000 cases more a day than the norm.

In fact, the number of such patients at polyclinics jumped from 2,842 a day the previous week to 3,341 last week.


ORIGINAL SOURCE 
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