Second peak, maybe

Today 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, warns Professor Donaldson”, in which it was explained why experts are cautious about the end of the pandemic in Europe. It said also that UK health authorities are uneasy because “the continuing deaths from swine flu and the high rate of hospitalisations despite low levels of the disease in the community”. The death toll has reached 270 in the United Kingdom and there are still 1000 people in hospital. According to the last report of the Italian Ministry of Health, updated on December 24th , in Italy the deaths are 188. Campania accounts for 25% of the fatal cases (47 deaths). But Campania accounts for only 10% of the Italian population.

Swine flu update: Week 50

Yesterday 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 Ministry has recorded 811 hospitalized cases, which required respiratory aids in 439 cases. All the cases are 3,794,000. All over Italy the pandemic has already peaked, the total incidence is 0,22%. Only in Sardinia, where the incidence is above 1%, there's still some flu activity. The update has received almost no  coverage by the newspapers.

More swine flu deaths in the souths

What 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 live only the 25% of the Italians. According to the Ministry, the national update depends on the speed of the regional updates, so maybe there's a difference in the regional reporting. Or maybe something really happened in South Italy. By the way, the Italian news media are still covering the issue, even though there are fewer articles.

Drop 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 vaccine. Until now 611,425 people got the shot.

Flu toll above 100

The 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  child who died in Lecce, Puglia region. Apparently, the child was healthy, before becoming infected.

Swine flu, at-risk groups in Italy

The New England Journal of Medicine has just published two papers about swine flu in USa, Australia and New Zealand. They discuss if specific groups of people were more involved and more likely to be hospitalized. The results say that people "with underlying medical conditions", were young, of minoritu groups have an increased risk.
There isn't any study in Italy yet, but according to the Minister of Health many deaths have occured in the Campania region. Actually, 23 out of 58 fatal cases of swine flu occured there. There's no explanation of this, maybe it's bad luck. Again, according to the official datas, almost all the people who died, 55 out of 58, were in the at-risk group. Nothing is said about foreign people. After a rough estimate of Ansa datas, it seems that 10% of all the deaths occured among them, a figure that fits in with the % of foreign population in Italy (6,5%).

Campania hit by swine flu

According to the Ministry of Health, the fatal cases of swine flu are 53. Fifty people were in the risk group.Very few people have been vaccinated, only 150,000 people out of 3,000,000 avalaible doses. The websites of many newspapers aren't covering the pandemic in the front page any more, apart from ilmattino.it, newspaper of Campania region, where occured 23 deaths. Meanwhile, the flu articles are in the top 20 news of GoogleNews.
The press release of the government has also announced that 40 million of antiviral drugs doses are avaiable, but this issue is not currently debated.

The vaccination campaign starts everywhere

Two fatal cases of swine flu have been confirmed today, in Umbria and in Campania. The death toll is now 34. The Deputy Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio has asked newspapers "to not rise useless alarms", while insisting that people in the risk group should get the vaccines, which "are safe and are used around the world." There are large differences in the vaccine distribution to population in Italy. Some regions, for example Sardinia, will start tomorrow the first phase of the vaccination campaign, while other regions have already proceeded at step two. However the outbreak has already caused 700,000 flu cases.

Situation Update: Week 44

The flu virus is now spreading fast in Italy. The Italian Health Ministry has released data about week 44 from October 26 to November 1 (updated to 5 pm). The flu incidence has risen to 8.96‰ and it's already higher than the peaks in the seasonal epidemies from 2005/06 to 2008/09. In Campania the regional incidence is 14.66‰, in Lombardia it is 13.48‰, more than 11.5‰ also in Emilia-Romagna, Marche and Lazio. Almost all the cases are caused by A(H1N1) virus (98.8%).
The fatal cases are 21 (9 in Campania, 3 in Emilia-Romagna, 4 in Lombardia, 2 in Lazio, 1 in Sicily, Tuscany and Umbria each). Vaccinated people are 41,000.

Week 43

According to the Iss data, the incidence in the 43th week of the year is 3,88 ‰ among all the people who got visited by doctors, and 13,02‰ among the 5-14 years old. The Iss released on October 28th also the local data, updated. In Campania (Naples and other cities) there is the highest incidence, but also in Lombardia (Milan) and Tuscany there are a lot of cases. Yesterday the Deputy Minister of Health Ferruccio Fazio said that in Europe only Spain has such an hign number of cases.
Piemonte 6,61 ‰
Val d'Aosta -
Pr. Aut. Bolzano 1,67
pPr. Aut. Trento 0,92
Veneto 0,88
Emilia-Romagna 3,06
Marche 4,86
Lazio 4,32
Molise -
Campania 12,37
Basilicata 1,33
Sardegna 0,55
Abruzzo 0,00
Calabria 1,08
Friuli vV.G: 0,93
Liguria 4,42
Lombardia 5,85
Puglia 1,75
Sicilia 2,13
Toscana 5,90
Umbria 2,64