According to Giovanni Rezza, director of the Ministry of Health‘s prevention department, this year’s peakinfluenza, the Australian, could arrive early, even in the first weeks of the new year, and it will be a very high intensity season. Instead, it usually occurs in the months of January-February. However, the professor was keen to point out that no one is a seer and that viruses are bizarre.
2 years flu free
In the week from 21 to 28 November, from what emerged from the Influnet surveillance network, there would have been a boom in flu-like syndromes, going from 9.5 cases per thousand inhabitants to 12.9. Although it is still autumn, more than 2.45 million people have already contracted the infection since the beginning of the season. Interviewed by Courier, Rezza explained that as regards children under 5 years of age there was a surge to 40.8 cases per thousand compared to 29.6 the week before. This because “The little ones, especially from 0 to 2 years, have practically never encountered these viruses because they have spent the last two winters at home or with schools closed. In those seasons, the flu had a hard time spreading. They are therefore very exposed to contagion ”. They would not be just flu viruses but which still give similar forms. And in any case, the flu prevails.
Symptoms
According to the professor, nothing should change from a symptomatological point of view, which on average lasts about 5 days: “Very high fever that rises rapidly, bone pain, sore throat, sniffles, inappetence. Even the treatments do not change. Take antipyretics to lower the temperature, drink plenty, rest and no antibiotics unless indicated by the doctor when faced with suspicion of a bacterial complication. We still remember that the antibiotics they don’t work against viruses.” We should not then be alarmed if the fever were to remain high, the appeal addressed above all to parents who are taking the pediatric emergency rooms by storm. As we have said, this year the A H3 N2 strain, identified in Australia, the Darwin, should prevail over the others. If this were to occur, it will then be called the Australian epidemic, given that it takes the name of the country in which the first isolation took place every year.
Elderly and frail
In the summer season the flu, as explained by Rezza, withdraws: “If we went looking for it, we would find rare cases. By now it has acquired a seasonal pattern out of habit and returns in the cold months while Sars, also a respiratory virus, circulated in the heat”. The director then stressed the importance of vaccination, recalling that the 2020-21 vaccination campaign had gone well. Attention was later focused on Covid and coverage in the elderly over 65 dropped from 65% to 58%. A particular recommendation should be made to elderly subjects, “for whom the adjuvanted formulation is preferable, and to the frail. It can be done easily together with the fourth dose against Sars-CoV-2, it is recommended for pregnant women. For these groups of the population it is free”. As for the little ones, however, Rezza made it known that in Anglo-Saxon countries the vaccine is promoted in children from 6 months to 2 years, so as to decrease the circulation of the virus and be able to protect the weakest. Instead of the sting “there is a spray vaccine indicated for 2 to 6 years”. However, the professor underlined that the priority remains the elderly and the frail.