The 2022 Australian flu has arrived in Italy. And “it took off like a rocket”, as Matteo Bassetti underlined. In fact, the number of cases has grown significantly in recent days. But what are the symptoms? and how is it taken care of? “In the week of November 21-27, the incidence is equal to 12.9 cases per thousand assisted (9.5 in the previous week), the estimated cases are 762 thousand, for a total of approximately 2,552,000 cases since the beginning of surveillance”, according to the Influnet report of the Higher Institute of Health (ISS). The contagions are driven by children: “The pediatric age groups are most affected, in particular children under the age of five, in which the incidence is equal to 40.8 cases per thousand assisted. It was 29, 6 in the previous week”, specifies the Iss. The incidence “in the 5-14 age group is 25.02 per thousand assisted, in the 15-64 age group it is 10.10 and among individuals aged 65 or over 5.04 cases per thousand assisted”.
“The flu is back worse than it left us in 2019 and it took off like a rocket, we are back to the driving force of the 2009 flu with high numbers anticipated compared to the season. We already have important numbers at the end of November”, he said with the Adnkronos Matteo Bassetti, director of infectious diseases at the San Martino hospital in Genoa. “Certainly today it is scary also for everything that it carries with it with a quantity of pan-influenza viruses, pneumococcal diseases and even pneumonia – the expert underlined – Someone says let’s put the masks back on, I say absolutely not. These microorganisms must circulate and have it has always been circulating, we have to protect ourselves but how? For example, we have lost a lot of coverage for pneumococcus, pneumonia vaccination, but also those for flu “.
The flu curve “will continue to grow because this is only the beginning”, warns the infectious disease specialist. “Today the incidence is very high among young children, but where will adults arrive and then grandparents. Will the former miss a few days of school but will grandparents end up in the hospital? The elderly – suggests Bassetti in conclusion – in these two weeks separate from Christmas instead of rushing to get presents rushing to get the flu vaccine “.
Mariano Magrì, pediatrician of the ASL Lecce Prevention department: “We cannot say that the cases are more serious or burdened with complications than in previous years, also because the balance is made at the end, so we will have to talk about it again in the spring of 2023. But certainly the number of children affected by influenza viruses is far higher than that recorded in the last two winter seasons”.
Flu symptoms and how to cure it
“What we can say with certainty is that the flu epidemic started earlier than usual”, recalled Magrì who stated that, as far as symptoms are concerned, this year too “we expect coughs, colds, headaches, muscle aches, but what we pediatricians fear is the onset of complications, which are always possible even in the pediatric age. Children certainly get sicker more; it is true that it is the grandparents who pay the most, but complications can arise, albeit rarely even in children dependent on various organs, being able to determine otitis, pneumonia, encephalitis, myocarditis, for which even in children every year we record inevitable deaths even in subjects previously in good health “.
Even treatments do not change, said Giovanni Rezza, general director of prevention at the Ministry of Health in an interview with Corriere della Sera. Take antipyretics to lower the temperature, drink plenty, rest and no antibiotics unless indicated by the doctor in the face of suspicion of a bacterial complication. “Antibiotics don’t work against viruses,” the professor clarified.
Prevention
“What we should pay attention to is basically prevention”, recalled the immunologist Mauro Minelli, responsible for Southern Italy of the Foundation for personalized medicine. And that is “to prevent adults or older siblings, if influenced , can be in direct contact with young children; avoid passive smoking which is certainly capable of worsening respiratory diseases in childhood; continue, where possible, to breastfeed, considering this as the only direct protective mechanism of which the man can dispose against viral infections”. “If all this were not enough to prevent the child from being involved in an important form of flu, what mothers should pay close attention to is the control of the little patient’s nutrition, because the first sign of an unfavorable evolution of the disease viral is the reduction of nutrition,” he added.
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