While Parliament is divided on a draft of the new Pandemic Plan 2024-2028over 1,400 days have passed since the hospitalization of the Chinese couple from Wuhan at the Inmi Spallanzani in RomeWuhan Xiangming Liu and Yamin Hu on a trip to our country but with Sars-CoV-2 in their bodies. On January 29, Italy was dealing with the new virus later renamed Covid, today after 4 years we have learned about the dozens of variants with the most absurd names, from Centaurus to Kraken. Four years ago the couple was rescued in a hotel in the Monti district in the center of Rome. The newly hospitalized husband showed bilateral interstitial pneumonia, the wife initially had mild symptoms, but both worsened in a short time. The couple was subjected to a therapy based on combined antivirals and anti-inflammatories. After almost 3 months, after undergoing rehabilitation between March and April at San Filippo Neri, they were discharged on April 21st to return to China.
In these 4 years we have gotten to know Covid and its strength better and better. After 2020-2021 when the virus hit hard with many cases and deaths in the world, the sacrifices to face lockdown, the mandatory mask and Dad to stop the spread of infections in the first months of 2020, with the arrival of mRNA vaccines, antivirals, public health has managed to contain and manage the disease. Science has moved quickly to respond to the new virus that arrived from China and the results have been seen. The waves of the following years 2022 and 2023 caused infections to rise especially in winter but never put intensive care in difficulty. We are living, as many had already predicted in unsuspecting times, with Covid. An endemic, a background noise of the virus that we will carry with us for a long time to come. The legacy of these four years in which the word pandemic has become a constant in our lives takes shape in the prevention actions that national and international institutions, from the WHO to the ECDC, are developing for a futuredisease', or a next pandemic.
In Italy one of the few to maintain a line of optimism and trust in science and in Italians even in the darkest moments of the emergency was Francesco Vaia, then director of Spallanzani and today at the helm of Prevention at the Ministry of Health. “Unforgettable moments that left their mark on many things and that paved the way for the future. A future that we glimpsed immediately. Going beyond the pandemic – he states Go to Adnkronos Salute – was the message that my colleagues and I sent from the institute's fountain as soon as we became aware of the epidemiological trend. The furrow is traced and many seeds are sown. Never again unprepared – underlines the director – never again without tools and facilities, never again a long and narrow Italy, differentiated in its health offer“.
“Always remembering is a useful exercise for everyone and in every context – continues Vaia – Of the events that occurred in these four years, from the presence of the Chinese couple onwards, some key moments remain imprinted: the courage given to the Italians, right from the start, while in many places people were hiding or giving in to the blackest pessimism – he says – The positive force of the people who believed in itthe great work of health workers photographed in two distinct moments: the Republic Day with Mattarella on June 2nd at Spallanzani and the G20 with the white coats of the great Trani of the earth and their thanks”.
“While we are also living with Sars-Cov-2, as long expected, we are making prevention central in our country. Prevention is the true actor of change – Vaia relaunches – If adequately supported it will be the cornerstone of the sustainability of the healthcare system and will give the necessary impetus for its recovery.”
“The waiting lists, the true shame of our NHS, the shortage of healthcare personnel, the poverty of the area, are the challenges we face. We will win them if the rational optimism and desire to believe that we put into the battle we won prevail“, he concludes.
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