Hepatitis detected in wastewater of Sofia and Burgas

It is very difficult to predict how many people are affected by the disease of dirty hands, but once we detect the virus in wastewater, we are already talking about a significant number of people. “For a city like Burgas, for example, there should be at least 200-300 patients, given that the official incidence per week is 30-40 people in the entire country. This shows that the number of patients is many times higher“, he also says. According to data from the National Center for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases, last week 30 cases of acute viral hepatitis were registered in our country. Since the beginning of the year, 738 cases have been registered in the country. For the same period last year, 363 cases were registered.

“Unfortunately, patients are very often missed, and sometimes the disease leads to complications and it is not a harmless condition that should be neglected. Wash your hands, be careful where you bathe and where you eat in the summer”, advises Dr. Ivanov.

There are also many enteroviruses in wastewater, which usually lead to gastrointestinal problems in the summer. In order not to ruin our vacation, we also need to maintain very good hygiene. There is currently a fairly large presence of COVID in the sewage system. In the spring of last year, there was a lull and suddenly in early July there was a peak, which was most likely brought in by vacationers in Greece. Now the picture is quite different, because the virus had disappeared during the winter months, appeared quite strongly around Easter and has not gone away since then. In Sofia, there is a decrease in the number of sick people, while in Varna it is exactly the opposite, the specialist also says.