Flu wreaked havoc persistently between Christmas and New Year, data from the RespiVirNet surveillance system managed by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità and the Italian Ministry of Health show Corriere della Sera. About 18 out of 1,000 Italians suffer from respiratory syndromes of various types.
Not just the flu, but bronchiolitis, the enemy of infants, and other forms with overlapping symptoms. Fever, cough, cold, exhaustion. The investigation covers the week to December 24. The curve is rising and another rise is expected.
It is a higher level than that observed in previous years during the same period. The record of 16 cases per 1,000 patients was broken. About 1.13 million people infected in the last seven days. Mainly children aged up to 4 years (incidence of 47 cases per 1,000 inhabitants), in the age group 5-14 years (20 per 1,000).
With doctors’ offices closed and a longer-than-usual string of public holidays, this mix of microbes has pushed thousands of patients into emergency rooms.
Between December 23 and 26, calls to 118 increased by 40%, calculated Mario Balzanelli, president of the Italian society of the 118 system. 55% of the interventions concerned respiratory pathologies.
The peak is also the result of viruses and bacteria carried by kissing and hugging. Marco Falconi, director of the infectious diseases center at the Cisanello hospital in Pisa, observes: “It would not be right to recommend limiting the manifestations of the condition, but once we receive the diagnosis of influenza we should behave as in the case of Covid-19”.
Translated into practical behavior, this means avoiding close contact with elderly or frail people, staying at home and avoiding closed and crowded places if symptoms are present.
“The wave of respiratory syndromes causes more problems than Covid”, insists Falconi. The difference is that those who test positive for Sars-Cov-2 take the problem seriously, isolate themselves and wear a mask. Those who are infected are, on the contrary, convinced that they have a trivial disease’. In reality, the flu is more often associated with a superimposed bacterial pneumonia.
For the flu, the treatment is generally the same as for Covid in the absence of other health problems. Anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, water-rich diet, herbal teas, chamomile. At least two liters a day, as 1.5 liters are lost with fever.
If after 2-3 days the thermometer continues to indicate high fever, the cough is oily and there are chest pains, a bacterial complication can be conceived. Only in this case do you resort to antibiotics and the doctor’s instructions. Recovery usually takes 5-7 days. The predominant influenza virus is H1 N1, the same one that was the protagonist of an epidemic in 2009, nicknamed “swine flu”.
“Since then it has circulated a little, and this year it came back among the so-called susceptible people, who have never experienced it before, especially young people and children,” says Giovanni Rezza, associate professor of hygiene at San Raffaele in Milan.
2024-01-01 05:34:01
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