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Health authorities will collect additional data on the spread of the coronavirus epidemic in Greece to certify the number of people who have fallen ill. Tonight, Thursday, Mr. Sotiris Tsiodras, reiterated that in our country it is estimated that less than 0.5% of the population has contracted the virus.
As you mentioned, they are already planned and the process of conducting 4 studies, which we hope will have results soon, has started.
Studies
1. Antibody perspective population study in Greece with specific epidemiological criteria to examine the percentage of people who have passed the disease and have developed antibodies. Of course, the diversity of our geography and the course of the epidemic may show differences in some areas a little more, some areas below.
2. Seroepidemiological study, carried out in collaboration with the National Blood Donation Center, the Ministry of Health and members of the expert committee, where a significant number of samples (at least 10,000) are reviewed by blood donors . As soon as we have a first idea of immunity and then perspective data of a significant healthy population like our blood donors, a population that covers the age range of 18-65 years (I remind you that 70% of cases of new disease coronary involve these ages)
3. Repeated seroepidemiological study of residual sera from the beginning of March, coordinated by the Thessaly Faculty of Medicine, in collaboration with EODY and other universities. The archive consists of 5,000 samples that will be analyzed next week.
4. In the Crete Region, a population seroepidemiological study for the coronavirus will begin next week. This study is a proposal of a research team from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Crete, which has the support of the Crete Region and will be carried out with the support of the Administration of the Seventh Ministry of Health, Medical Associations and other social organizations on the island.
Similar studies have been reported in other European countries, such as Spain, France, and the Czech Republic. Spanish studies show a different course of the disease in some areas compared to others (Madrid 11% vs. 2% in other areas) 10 times lower risk of the disease but unfortunately still low levels of immunity around 5% and a risk of death about 1 to 1.2% much more than the flu and higher than previously thought. A characteristic of the Spanish study was that in children aged 1 to 4 years only 2.2% were positive, while in 5-9% only 3%.
Going forward, we are also considering special population categories in which we would like to see the spread of the disease, where some services may show higher rates of infection. For example, front-line health professionals are expected to have higher rates, but we’ll see.
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