According to the local newspaper Kainuun Sanomat, the soldiers began to fall ill the last two weeks, after new recruits arrived on the tenth of January. Tests revealed the cause to be H1N1.
The soldiers are not being kept in isolation.
In mid-January, the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) said the peak of this winter's swine flu wave had passed. By then the THL had confirmed 10 cases of patients in intensive care as well as one fatality in Kotka. It still recommends that those belonging to high-risk groups get a seasonal influenza vaccination, which gives protection against a new A-virus strain of the disease as well as other flu strains.
