tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28764352179669031032024-03-13T11:26:26.139+01:00Swine flu in ItalyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-20406277382621074782010-02-23T21:43:00.000+01:002010-02-23T21:43:00.427+01:00The withdrawal of the vaccinesThe Minister of Health, Professor Ferruccio Fazio, said yesterday that the Ministry has began to count the number of the unused vaccines in the Regions. This is the first step for the withdrawal of the vaccines. He said also that if the WHO doesn't declare the phase 5 of the pandemic (we are in phase 6), the pandemic alarm can't be ended. He concluded that the final assessment of the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-49940106801325698412010-02-07T19:16:00.000+01:002010-02-07T19:16:14.156+01:00Update: Week 4The influenza virus is spreading again in Italy. There have been 111,000 cases in the last week, a bit more than in the previous week (97,000). It looks like it's not the A(H1N1) virus but a different one. A newspaper of Genoa, the local edition of La Repubblica, has said that in Liguria region the cases increased by 30% in the last week (Osservatorio Epidemiologico Regionale data).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-62025814905300054282010-02-05T11:01:00.001+01:002010-02-05T11:08:07.564+01:00Vaccine, the popular oneThe swine flu vaccine is really unpopular in Italy. According to the Ministry of Health, at the end of January just 851,549 people were vaccinated. Most of them had one single dose, while 47,013 people got two doses. The Ministry has an huge surplus of vaccine, that nobody knows how to use. As a matter of fact, only a small amount of the 1,047,421 available doses has been given. The data of the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-20689391857233226792010-02-01T15:57:00.000+01:002010-02-01T15:57:40.039+01:00Update: Week 3Last Friday the '1500' swine flu telephone number has been discontinued. The Ministry of Health has said that in the last weeks it received very few calls, as the pandemic eased off. On the third week there have been recorded 96,000 new cases of flu, a bit more than on the previous week (82,000). The strain of the virus is unknown, it could be the A(H1N1) or another one. Meanwhile, the swine fluUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-27060713366536785422010-01-26T14:48:00.000+01:002010-01-26T14:48:42.586+01:00What about the vaccine safety?
Maybe MF59 adjuvated vaccine, like the Focetria vaccine by Novartis, used in Italy against the swine flu, could protect people from more types of virus. In a paper published by Science Translational Medicine, researchers from FDA, Novartis and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, said that the MF59 adjuvant can make the trick. They said that they can boost the efficacy of the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-58855497993913668422010-01-21T12:09:00.001+01:002010-01-21T12:14:17.995+01:00On persuading Novartis
Sergio Dompè, the president of the association of pharmaceutical industry (Farmindustria), hopes that Novartis and the Italian government will reach a new agreement to change their contract and to convert the swine flu vaccine supply in something else. Instead of buying other doses, the government will buy other products. Dompè said that, considering the actual need, it's understandable to find Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-51944222778930778922010-01-20T23:04:00.000+01:002010-01-20T23:04:06.839+01:00The secret agreementAltreconomia, an Italian magazine, has published on-line the “secret agreement” between the Italian government and the pharmaceutical company Novartis to buy 24 million doses of the swine flu vaccine. The article said that the agreement was too partial to Novartis, because the company was liable only for damages caused by defects of production, it was made no responsible for any delay in the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-58125191101386242442010-01-15T23:25:00.000+01:002010-01-15T23:25:54.251+01:00Situation Update: Week 1Yesterday the website of La Repubblica said that the “second wave” of the swine flu epidemic could be looming, because in the last week the flu cases increased from 75,00 to 78,000 (data of the Ministry of Health). The national incidence has slightly increased from 1.23‰ to 1.30‰. But it isn't clear if the involved virus is still the H1N1 virus or the seasonal one. There are also some people in Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-20364909620302251582010-01-13T23:16:00.000+01:002010-01-13T23:16:02.551+01:00Too late, too muchToday the Minister of Health, Professor Ferruccio Fazio, was asked in Parliament what to do with the unused doses of the swine flu vaccine. He was also questioned about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine itself, and about the costs of the campaign. Professor Fazio admitted that “the vaccine was available only when the first wave of the epidemic has begun”, and that the flu was, “thankfully”, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-800905117802939432010-01-10T22:33:00.001+01:002010-01-10T22:36:58.114+01:00Bad surpriseToday, for the first time after many weeks, some on-line news media have published the story of another swine flu victim, a 32-years-old woman who died in Pisa (Tuscany). She was admitted in the local hospital on December 23, after been hit by the H1N1 virus. The Ansa press agency report also the deaths of other 3 people since the start of the year: a 59-years-old man in Perugia (Umbria), a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-88661428350919524182010-01-09T20:20:00.000+01:002010-01-09T20:20:36.295+01:00Too many dosesYesterday the ANSA press agency, by l'Unità newspaper, covered a story about the mistrust of the flu vaccine. According to the poll conducted by Key-Stone, the 97% of Italians refuse to get the vaccine against the swine flu. The 25% refuse all kinds of vaccines, the 24 only the swine flu vaccine, while the 21% were advised by their doctors to not get the shot. More then half of the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-26846928340146777292009-12-28T23:24:00.000+01:002009-12-28T23:24:00.208+01:00Second peak, maybeToday Il Giornale di Sicilia, a newspaper of Palermo, wrote that the swine flu epidemic might hit again Italy, and that a further peak might occur in the next months. Apparently, the newspaper was quoting CDC Director Thomas Frieden. Meanwhile, the Bmj, a scientific journal, published an article on December 7th, with the title “Fall in swine flu cases may not signal an end of the epidemic, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-38013527118359296922009-12-25T10:24:00.000+01:002009-12-25T10:24:42.408+01:00Swine flu, no coverage
Many Italian news media don't cover the swine flu any more. Yesterday the Ansa press agency reported about the 10th death in Veneto, a man 56 years old, already ill by cancer, who died near Verona after 20 days in a hospital. And this is the only bit of news about the swine flu.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-49373942277708083972009-12-25T07:14:00.000+01:002009-12-25T07:14:25.795+01:00Situation Update: Week 51Yesterday the Italian Institute of Health updated its weekly report about the swine flu in the country. The swine flu incidence (as the number of new cases in a week out 1,000 people) is abating and now it has dropped to an incidence of 1.79‰ (or 0.179%). The incidence is moderately high only in the island of Sardinia, where it is still 7.68‰.
All the regions are past the peak. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-61676905468805613902009-12-18T17:02:00.000+01:002009-12-18T17:02:39.847+01:00Swine flu update: Week 50Yesterday the Ministry of Health said that the swine flu has killed 163 people. In Campania the regional authority has recorded 45 deaths, in Puglia 25, in Lombardia e Calabria 12 each. In the South of Italy the fatal cases are 90, more than half of the national cases. Maybe there's a different kind of recording or updating the data, but it's really strange such a large number.
Until now the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-74233909601456240252009-12-17T20:06:00.000+01:002009-12-17T20:06:09.698+01:00WHO: 'Too early' to say pandemic overToday the only piece of news about the swine flu is the WHO press conference in Geneva. Italian news media have covereved the talk of Dr Keiji Fukuda, Special Adviser to the Director-General on Pandemic Influenza. "Now we are about 8 months into the pandemic and one of the common questions coming to us is, that is the pandemic over, is it time to call it, and really the answer is, that it is Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-87417025074237511922009-12-16T10:42:00.000+01:002009-12-16T10:42:55.826+01:00Swine flu lesson"And if the virus were only a cold?" wrote La Repubblica some days ago. The article by Angelo Aquaro explains that the mortality of the swine flu has been by far inferior to the expected (0.018%, less than the seasonal flu), there's been a decrease of the hospitalized cases in the United States and Europe (except France) in the days of the expected peak, many controversies on the vaccines (in Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-35326806331909977192009-12-15T20:51:00.001+01:002009-12-15T20:53:50.199+01:00Newly appointed minister
Today Professor Ferrucio Fazio has been appointed to the newly created role of Minister of Health. He has received strong support by his party's MPs, but also by medical associations and business unions. In the last months he managed to prepare for the pandemic of swine flu, and many people owe that to him.
Things are going quite well, especially in North Italy. In the southernUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-21262059731986490422009-12-15T10:23:00.000+01:002009-12-15T10:23:17.974+01:00An Italian vaccine
Italy have done well against the swine flu, and the country is ready to research a new universal vaccine against all the flu viruses. Yesterday the Deputy Minister of Health Ferruccio Fazio talked about the pandemic in Italy. Fazio said also that one of the goals of the Istituto Superiore della Sanità is the universal vaccine, active against all the influenza viruses. The target of the research Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-25714169844851925012009-12-14T21:02:00.000+01:002009-12-14T21:02:39.571+01:00The Imaginary pandemic"The Imaginary Virus. Swine flu milder than the seasonal one and almost nobody got the vaccine shot": this was the headline of Il Foglio newspaper on December 3. "As expected, the 'A' is a second class flu" wrote il Giornale after a week. In these days there are a few of editorials about the swine flu. The outbreak has already peaked, the emergency rooms are no longer crowded by scared people, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-50418621804033380192009-12-11T18:25:00.001+01:002009-12-14T18:42:10.484+01:00High flu cases in Sardinia: Week 49
Sardinia has been the last region in Italy to record an high incidence of the swine flu. But in the past week the number of cases recorded in the island has decreased to 2.033%. The total incidence in Italy has dropped to 0.373%. According to InfluNet, the H1N1 virus has spread more than the other seasonal flu viruses, apart from the 2004/05 virus. Meanwhile, the Deputy Health Ministr FerruccioUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-34866631976381232022009-12-10T19:25:00.000+01:002009-12-10T19:25:30.237+01:00More swine flu deaths in the southsWhat happens in South Italy? Yesterday the Ministry of Health updated the swine flu report. The number of deaths has risen to 137. A total of 67 people have died in the regions of South Italy: Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, and Puglia. The virus has killed 30 people in Campania, 18 in Puglia, and 13 in Calabria. So, the 55% of swine flu deaths has occurred in the south, where Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-23553482730189602712009-12-09T07:33:00.000+01:002009-12-09T07:33:04.844+01:00Flu outbreak in pig farm
Some days ago there has been an outbreak of swine flu in a pig farm in Italy. The animals have been infected at the end of November by the H1N1 virus at a farm in Nerviano, near Milano, Lombardia. According to the report of the Italian Ministry of Health (through OIE), "the breeding sows were sick with lack of appetite, weakness and fever. All sows recovered fully in few days". There were 375 Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-81488313444950585512009-12-08T17:39:00.002+01:002009-12-08T17:45:41.081+01:00Drop of swine flu cases: week 48
The swine flu cases are decreasing in Italy. The national incidence has fallen to 0.664%. Only in two regions, in Sardinia and in Friuli Venezia Giulia, the pandemic is still at its peak. Meanwhile, the deaths have stopped to 114 (in Campania region 28), and to 410 the cases who needed respiratory aid. The government's ad is still aired on the State television to invite people to get the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2876435217966903103.post-70263156100132609462009-12-02T08:19:00.000+01:002009-12-02T08:19:19.428+01:00Flu toll above 100The swine flu has came to its maximum in Italy, but the deaths are still increasing. The Ministry of Health has said that the deaths are 101 (27 in the Campania region). It said also that 494,915 people has been vaccinated, out of 5,030,851 available doses. More than 131,000 health care workers have been vaccinated, more or less 13%. Italian mass media have covered about a two years old Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0