Sturla: “There is confusion but the temporary stop with the winter is useful”

PAVIA

The dizzying growth of infections in Italy in recent days, also due to the spread of the Omicrom variant, also involves the world of sport and is leading to postponements and suspensions of national as well as local events throughout our country. We talk about it with Professor Mario Ireneo Sturla, at the top of the world health in the world of boxing as president of the Ebu doctors (European Boxing Union) and those of the Wbc (World Boxing Council), as well as health coordinator of the Italian Boxing Federation and President of the Sports Physicians of the Province of Pavia.

Professor Sturla, a worrying and confusing situation also for sportsmen, as well as for many Italian citizens, at this moment?

«Clearly also in sport, both professional and amateur, there is a generalized confusion. With assertions and then immediately contradictions. As a sports doctor, as well as an internist, what is clear is what the Italian Sports Medical Federation has established nationally and internationally. A protocol has been adopted that athletes must adopt both to do, but also to return to sports, after symptoms such as myocarditis, pericarditis after contracting Covid “.

Now the CTS (Technical Scientific Committee) will decide on the possible shortening of the quarantine times for those vaccinated with third dose who have been in contact with people who tested positive.

«An answer that will then be implemented by a ministerial decree that will be able to reduce from 7 to 5 or 3 days, these are the two hypotheses foreseen. And the Sports Medical Federation will certainly give indications regarding sportsmen and various championships or competitions ».

Do you think that the suspension of the activity, as decided in some leagues, is the right solution?

“There are also contradictions among experts in this sense. A bit of confusion, but also the use of common sense for the protocol issued by the Sports Medical Federation. The situation in our country is different. In the South we find places where in recent weeks there are, or have been, 19 degrees of temperature, while in the North it has dropped below zero. Thinking also about recoveries in January in the evening in our areas is unthinkable. In addition to Covid, there is a risk that athletes get sick from the usual seasonal ailments, flu or in the most serious cases bronchopneumonia that add to the current global health emergency. You need caution and common sense, and when you need to stop the activity, especially the amateur one and then resume safely later ».

There are those who ask for the obligation of vaccination to carry out sports activities. Could this be a solution?

“Surely those who have been vaccinated, or are vaccinated, run a lower risk, thanks to the defense of the antibodies created. But it’s not that the vaccine isn’t contagious or that it can have complications. I followed directly in Treviso the case of the former boxing champion Maurizio Stecca, almost my godson, who ended up in intensive care despite having received the first two doses of vaccine. I can name his name because he made it public himself, but I have followed and I follow other professional athletes infected despite being vaccinated “.

Enrico Venni

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