Selection: Michalis Katsigeras

ASIAN FLU: After yesterday’s sudden change in the weather, the spread of the flu epidemic has taken on new proportions. According to reliable sources in the health sector, about 50 percent of the population of Athens has been affected and in the provinces, where the epidemic is spreading at a slower rate, the percentage is also very high. Four new flu deaths have been reported at the Children’s Hospital. Scientists doubt whether it was the flu that led to the deaths from laryngitis. It was also announced yesterday that three more people had died of flu in Athens. They were a 72-year-old woman in Nea Smyrni, a man in Nea Philadelphia and an elderly man at a clinic in Kallithea, as well as three others in Lamia and one in Komotini. Meanwhile the Welfare Ministry has issued a lengthy statement asserting that all the appropriate health measures have been taken and that vaccines would not be purchased as there were reservations in other countries regarding the vaccine and its use abroad was limited. Lastly, the director of the state pathology research laboratory and a specialist in viral diseases said in a letter that the laboratory could produce 10,000-15,000 vaccines by the end of December.