Dr Matti Maimets, the  head of Infection Control Department of Tartu University Hospital declared to the press that the swine flu epidemic is most likely to reach Estonia in January and to last for three months.

Vaccines should arrive in Estonia only in February

As for the vaccine, it is expected to arrive massively to Estonia only in February when the epidemic should reach its peak. According to the evaluation made by Maimets around 500 – 1000 people in Estonia could die of the flu for the lack of the vaccine.

In addition to buying the vaccine on the state level, politicians are also working with their European colleagues for making it arrive as soon as possible at the retail market. Right now the countries are buying the vaccine and giving it mostly to the people belonging to the risk group, others do not have the possibility to get it. Loosing this limit will be a subject to discussions on the 1st of December during the meeting of the Ministers of Social Affairs of the European Union.

As one dose of the vaccine costs approximately 7 Euros (110 EEK) and the state is hoping to buy it for the protection of at least 200 000 people, the total cost would be about 22 million kroons. The expenses for dividing it and pay for general practitioners for injecting will be added.

According to the data of the Health Protection Inspectorate, as at yesterday there have occurred 107 cases since may when new flu arrived here. During the last days the number of infected has grown rapidly, and last week already 15 people were diagnosed as having swine flu.

Mainly people at age 10-39 have fallen ill. Most of the cases have been discovered in Tallinn, and mostly among the people fallen ill were women.