Streptococcus tests imminent - Decisions from the meeting

A series of preventive measures to address and monitor the outbreak of streptococcal infections in Cyprus was announced on Monday by the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the Paediatric Society of Cyprus.

In a statement after a meeting at the Ministry, Health Minister Michael Hadjipantela said that Cyprus has special relations with the UK and many of the infections are due to students and other Cypriots living in the UK and traveling to Cyprus at Christmas.

"The situation is manageable at the moment, fortunately, we don't have any outbreaks in our country but we will not be complacent and we have decided on additional measures," he said.

The first measure, Hadjipantela said, is for updated guidelines to be prepared by the Ministry of Health, which will be sent to the Paediatric Society and all its members. At the same time, these guidelines will also be sent to the Cyprus Medical Association and to the Health Insurance Organization so that they can be forwarded to personal physicians.

The second measure, Hadjipantela continued, is the effort to make the strep test, which detects the virus in time, immediately available from the Ministry of Health to pediatricians. He said a proposal will be forwarded to the Council of Ministers tomorrow to set a ceiling price of 5 euros for the administration of these tests.

The President of the Cyprus Pediatric Society Michael Anastasiades said in turn that they fully agree with the measures announced by the Minister, and called on the members of the Society to further increase awareness and vigilance for early diagnosis and treatment.

He added that cases of invasive diseases, such as those that led to the deaths of some children in the UK and Spain, have fortunately not been recorded, nor hospitalizations from this strain.

In relation to the coronavirus situation, the Minister said that there were 87 hospitalizations today, adding that there is not at the moment any thought of reintroducing masks. At the same time, he said, we need to send the message to people, particularly those over 60 years of age, that they should be vaccinated immediately with the first or second booster dose because further hospitalizations can only be prevented through vaccination.