Nine patients are currently being treated with flu-related infections in intensive care units across Cyprus, two of whom are under the age of 40.

State health services organisation (Okypy) spokesman Charalambos Charilaou said a significant portion of the population had come down with flu over the past weeks.

Charilaou called on the public to take precautions and seek the advice of their GPs as soon as any symptoms appear.

He told the Cyprus News Agency that the two youngest patients in ICU, aged 38 and 36, had underlying conditions.

“This leads us to believe that the complications of a flu, an RSV virus or Covid are not restricted to the elderly or people in vulnerable groups,” he said.

He added that among those in the ICU were people aged between 50 and 60.

Charilaou said that so far, the situation was manageable and that the warmer weather of the past few days had helped, offering a respite to hospitals.

Okypy, he added was applying its plan to increase the number of hospital beds across Cyprus.

As long as more patients were visiting the emergency departments there would be more admissions, he explained.

Charilaou added Okypy had taken several measures to address the seasonal outbreak and had adjusted its planning to increase pathology and pulmonology beds, measures which he said appeared to be working.

Patients admitted with pathological and pulmonary diseases were being treated in isolation, due to the infectiousness of their conditions.

Our effort is to always have available beds, Charilaou said, adding that discharges were given quickly, in agreement with the clinic doctors.

Charilaou advised patience at emergency departments, as health complaints would be prioritised according to their seriousness.

Those with mild symptoms should contact their GPs or outpatients, he added.