Italy is having a record flu
season and there will have been 7.5-8 million cases by the end
of this year's epidemic, virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco told
ANSA Thursday.
"Considering that now there are already around five million
Italians hit by flu viruses, we can estimate that at the end of
the season the total cases will arrive at 7.5-8 million," said
Pregliasco, a researcher at Milan university and health director
of the IRCCS Galeazzi Institute.
He said that this total would be the highest in at least nine
years.
"The season is comparable in its virulence only to 2004-5 and
the pandemic year of 2009," he said.
Italy's flu epidemic has peaked at over 4.7 million cases so
far, the Higher Health Institute's (ISS) Influnet service said
earlier Thursday.
The number of cases was now gradually declining, Influnet
said.
In the third week of the year there were 794,000 new cases
for a total, since the epidemic started being watched, of
4,728,000 Italians who were confined to their beds by the
epidemic.
The incidence is still at a 'high intensity' level of 13.1
per 1,000 but lower than the previous week, when it was 14.5,
Influnet said.
The ISS said that since it began monitoring the epidemic in
September 64 people had died of the flu.
It added there had been seven serious cases among pregnant
women.
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