Respiratory Viruses Coming, With Temperatures Falling “About 150,000 Cases a Week”

From the hottest summer ever to sudden autumn: a thermal collapse that will cause a boom in respiratory infections in Italy, with “around 150 thousand cases per week”Virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco expects this impact from the polar cyclone that is hitting the Peninsula.

“In these days of such marked temperature changes – explains to Adnkronos Salute the director of the School of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine of the State University of Milan – the spread of all respiratory viruses is favored and in particular of influenza-like viruses, therefore adenoviruses, enteroviruses and rhinoviruses. It is a classic”, underlines the expert. “The temperature change, we know – he recalls – reduces the protective action of mucus and cilia that line the internal respiratory tract. In other words, the ‘scavenger mechanism’ that cleans them, what in technical jargon we call muco-ciliary clearance, fails. Thermal stress, that is, the passage from hot to cold but also vice versa, is indifferent, it blocks it by exposing the respiratory tree to viral attacks”.

The The weather will therefore awaken the so-called ‘cousin’ viruses of the classic winter flu. Pathogens that in reality, in this year’s “endless season”, have never really fallen asleep. “Let’s remember that even throughout the summer, due to the temperature changes we had, the tail of infections was very long – Pregliasco points out – with the curve of flu-like syndromes that practically never fell below baseline levels. Now, with the drop in temperatures, it will outline the beginning of a rise”. While the real flu and Covid remain on the horizon: “In August there was a flare-up of Sars-CoV-2 infections”, and since “the waves repeat themselves every 4-6 months – the virologist predicts – it is presumable that in the short term, thanks to the new variants of the coronavirus, a new one will be triggered”.