CONSEQUENCES OF AIR POLLUTION: Increased number of lung diseases, more children falling ill

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - In the Sarajevo Canton, approximately 33,000 people have been registered with respiratory infections, and around 4,000 with influenza and influenza-like illnesses.

According to data from the Epidemiology Unit of the Institute for Public Health of the Sarajevo Canton, from the beginning of October to the end of December, 4,052 people with influenza-like symptoms were reported.

In an official address, the Institute for Public Health of the Sarajevo Canton states that the diseases are present but within the annual average.

“Respiratory diseases in children are present but within the annual average. Certainly, the air pollution we have had in the recent period can affect the health picture, but the situation in January in terms of reported cases was not alarming, so the numbers were expected for that month,” they state from the Health Center of the Sarajevo Canton.

Unofficially, according to Patria's sources from healthcare institutions, during January there was an increase in the number of children suffering from severe respiratory infections, and that number is only growing.

Every year, about ten percent of the European population becomes infected with the influenza virus, and complications from these infections cause hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations across Europe.