“We continue to distribute protective equipment to citizens to avoid contact with stagnant water and mud as much as possible. Because there is a risk of leptospirosis, which often appears, as doctors tell us, with mild symptoms”, said Deputy Minister of Health Irini Agapidakis, speaking to ERT, regarding the health situation in Daniel Thessaly, which was affected by the bad weather.

On the occasion of the upcoming new bad weather predicted in the middle of the week, she also mentioned:

“We have a situation in which, while the place in Thessaly is recovering with a thousand and two difficulties, a new bad weather comes, which may aggravate the already existing wounds, and there we act on different levels.

Civil protection is all the people here on foot every day. No one has left the field. Too many of us, obviously from the ministries, the central state in collaboration with the local government are trying as much as we can to speed up the processes of normalizing people’s daily lives in order to have as little impact as possible from the new bad weather.

Projects are already being carried out to ensure that areas of increased risk do not flood again, as assessed by Civil Protection. There is an activity going on which concerns the collection of dead animals and this is important because with another bad weather this problem will get worse.

At least more than 50% of the dead animals have been collected, especially from the large units and now the effort is concentrated in the villages – in various places where there are scattered dead animals. Efforts are being intensified with the crews.

At the same time, there are crews that collect household goods, because you only know if someone in the field can grasp the extent of the destruction. In many places only the walls are left of the houses. Everything that existed as household goods is redistributed with mud, often with dead animals. The volume in all these villages is huge and that is why this effort takes many days”.

Regarding the health situation in Thessaly, the deputy minister underlined:

“As far as water is concerned, we will continue the surveillance as usual. To date, more than a thousand samples have been taken in collaboration with the local water supply and sewage companies. We give instructions to citizens. You see that in the updates we do at regular intervals we provide information about where the water is suitable, where it is not suitable.

Bottled water is distributed daily and one can see this very easily. Tons of bottled water have been distributed. The supply of the areas in which the water is unsuitable continues, and you can see this process every day in the coordination of the Region. Trucks arrive with bottled water, which is distributed to citizens. This has not stopped. It has been since day one. It’s just that in the first few days there was a difficulty.

Let me remind you that resupply was done by air in many places. Now it’s smoothed out, the villages are accessible, so the distribution network is also easier than the rest of the mud instructions.

We continue to distribute protective equipment to citizens to avoid contact with standing water and mud as much as possible. Because there is a risk of leptospirosis, which often appears, as doctors tell us, with mild symptoms.

In other words, one can have fever and gastroenteritis and stay at home, underestimate it, think it will pass. We shouldn’t do that. It is important to seek help very quickly. Anyone with common cold symptoms, rashes or symptoms, experience of gastroenteritis should seek medical help, because in many cases there may be an issue with leptospirosis behind it.”

Regarding the situation in hospitals, he noted:

“Now that we have on-call services, the process has already progressed in order to optimize the on-call system so that we don’t have these problems in relation to the part of our responsibilities that have more to do with prevention in public health, with primary .

No later than the beginning of next year we aspire – at the end of this year – we will have a bill for the Primary with a total re-establishment.

Primary care will become an autonomous pillar of the National Health System, something we see these days happening in Thessaly. It’s that we go to the citizens – we don’t wait for the citizens to come to the health services.

We have mobile units that are constantly visiting all affected areas. You will see this unfolding on a nationwide level in order to change the model we have in the National Health Service so that our country can make progress in the field of prevention.”

With reference to the situation with coronavirus and flu and the treatment by EODY, he emphasized:

“The National Vaccination Committee has done all the processing based on the recommendations we have from European agencies for the coronavirus, such as the proposal, the recommendations we have from other agencies such as the American NHS. All other scientific organizations, including the National Immunization Committee, have processed all these guidelines, have come up with a prioritization plan, and we will announce it officially in the next few days.

The exact same thing happens with the flu. For the flu this year we have two different preparations, one more strengthened and the vaccine that we all have and which is for the general population. The other is for specific groups. They will be announced in detail by the National Vaccination Committee in the coming days.

Ms. Agapidaki also underlined that “It is not only mental health specialists who provide care to people. For me it is of huge importance that people see us on the field. To see the EOPYY teams see the TOMY of the primary school from the 5th Ministry of Health. They know every week for sure that they will go to their village. This is a constant presence as it needs. If you will allow me the analogy, when we are babies, we need our mother to take care of us firmly. We can’t stand him feeding us one day and not the next. So when we are all in need, whether we are sick or experiencing a natural disaster, we need this maternal – allow me the term – care of the state, which must be stable and this is what we seek as the Ministry of Health from the very beginning, not only in the part exclusively of mental health, but holistically with the context of the care we provide to citizens”.