Romanian hospitals record a significant rise in respiratory infection cases last week

A total of over 95,083 acute respiratory infection cases were recorded in hospitals throughout Romania from December 5 to 12, 2022, an explosive rise from the previous week’s number of 69,699 cases, according to new data published by the National Institute of Public Health.

About 1,000 of them were cases of clinical flu, 14 were severe acute respiratory infections (SARI), and 17 were cases of influenza (1 with AH3 virus, 5 with AH1 virus, and 11 with non-subtyped influenza A virus).

Speaking to Libertatea, Beatrice Mahler, manager of the National Institute of Pneumology Marius Nasta in Bucharest, said that the number’s explosion could be prompted by the extreme drop of temperatures in some Romanian cities in the past few days.

“The World Health Organization draws attention to the existence at an international level of increasing levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. This leads to deeply disturbed sleep. Incomplete and inadequate sleep and an increased level of stress lead to a decrease in immunity. It's a direct connection, more and more often specified in studies, and it can be a cause of the decrease of immunity and the high number of viral infections,” she explained.

Moreover, the data also revealed that Bucharest recorded the most influenza A (not subtyped) cases with 11, followed by Cluj with 10, while no confirmed death with influenza virus has been reported nationwide.

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