In the season of super flu, driven by the K variant of the A/H3N2 virusthe wait for the new bulletin of the Higher Institute of Health is growing. The RespiVirNet surveillance update – traditionally published on Friday – was not released yesterday (26 December, Boxing Day) and will arrive on Monday 29, as specified by the ISS in an addition at the top of the latest bulletin relating to the week from 8 to 14 December. What should we expect? “Definitely an upward trend”, says virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco a number of acute respiratory infections “around one million” with “a prevalence of influence share”.
When is the peak of infections expected?
The current one “is still an expansive phase – the director of the School of Specialization in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine at the University of Milan explains to Adnkronos Salute – and this is demonstrated by the fact that last week small children were still the most affected, with a very high growth in incidence” in the 0-4 age group. “We will see the overall effects of the Christmas holidays, of trips-kisses-hugs – specifies the expert – when the schools reopen” and the peak of the epidemic curve is expected in January.
Flu symptoms
In addition to the usual cocktail of respiratory viruses, underlines the medical director of the Irccs Galeazzi-Sant’Ambrogio hospital in Milan, “certainly some enteroviruses are also circulating” with nausea, vomiting and dysentery: the so-called ‘intestinal flu’ which “as we know is not influenza. Even the binges of these days – highlights Pregliasco – can be the cause of diarrheal forms linked to dysbiosis, digestive problems, and perhaps to some infections” of food origin.
The ISS bulletin is postponed
Among the most social doctors, the Christmas postponement of the bulletin did not go unnoticed. “Unfortunately the official data on influenza from the ISS (which come out every Friday) are not coming out and I cannot write the bulletin – the virologist commented yesterday Roberto Burioni -. I understand that it is a holiday, but illnesses know no holidays and whoever decides to be a doctor (or to deal with medical issues) must take this aspect of the profession into account”, points out the professor of Virology and Microbiology at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milan, adding a “ps: the bulletin, due today, will be released on Monday. No problem for public health, but it would have been appropriate to communicate it in advance. They tell me that the work of ISS colleagues on holidays takes place without any financial recognition. This is unfair and work must always be paid”, remarks Burioni.
The infectious disease specialist echoes this Matteo Basseti: “We will have to wait until Monday 29 December to find out how many cases of flu there were in the week of Christmas in Italy. We were expecting it for Friday 26/12 (the day on which the report comes out every week), but it was a holiday and therefore no data. Imagine if the same thing was done in hospitals…”, comments the director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa.
