Tengiz Tsertsvadze: The workload of the clinics has also increased, but there is no overloading - it is a lie that there are no places in the clinics
Recently, there has been an increase in the number of respiratory infections, the workload of the clinics has also increased, but there is absolutely no need to dramatize this topic, there is nothing to panic about - it is a lie that there are no places in the clinics, Tengiz Tsertsvadze, the director of the Tbilisi Infectious Disease Hospital, said in an interview with InterPressNews.
According to him, in 2024, there were no cases of death due to influenza.
"Recently, there has been an increase in the number of respiratory infections, and the workload of clinics has also increased. This is true, but it is not correct when individual experts or media outlets note that there is a "dramatic situation" in the country, "there are no more places in the clinics", "parents with children are standing in line at the clinic". According to an objective assessment, the number of patients with respiratory infections has increased in the country, but there is absolutely no need to dramatize this topic, there is nothing to panic about. This increase was expected. In the past three years, there have been fewer respiratory infections, because then, when COVID-19 was dominant, the state and the whole world took effective countermeasures, such as wearing masks, avoiding public gatherings, limiting mass gatherings, and so on. All this prevented the spread of respiratory infections. As a result, the rate of spread of all these infections has decreased in the last 3 years. This year, as the restrictions imposed due to COVID-19 have been lifted, the prevalence of respiratory infections has increased to the limits that were before COVID-19.
According to the WHO data, 290,000-650,000 people die from flu alone in the world every year. In Georgia, last year we had about 20 cases of death from influenza, which is one of the lowest rates in the world. In 2024, we have no confirmed cases of death from influenza. It seems that the number of cases of respiratory infections is high, this causes artificial panic, but we have no fatal cases," Tsertsvadze said.
According to him, "it is an exaggeration to say that the hospital sector is overloaded."
"The workload of the hospital sector has increased, but there is no overloading. I say with full responsibility that it is a lie, as if there are no places in the clinics. Maybe any of children's clinics was overloaded for a few days, but we remind you that we have many other clinics. The bed fund in leading clinics with an infectious profile is half full," Tsertsvadze noted.
