The next flu season will be intense: "As much, if not worse, than last year's, when we had the very high figure of 15 million cases of influenza and parainfluenza viruses. We see it from what is happening in Australia, where winter has just ended: their epidemic was worse than that of 2023-24". The forecast is by Fabrizio Pregliasco, health director of the Irccs Galeazzi - Sant'Ambrogio in Milan, just over a month after the start of the vaccination campaign.
The virologist from the University of Milan looks at the data from the previous one and is not confident: «The lowest data», Pregliasco specifies, «were in Sardinia where only 35.7% of over 65s were vaccinated, and Bolzano where 39.9% were vaccinated».
Getting vaccinated is an opportunity for everyone, but for the elderly it is a lifesaver. Yet, except for the year of the Covid pandemic, Italy has always been at low levels compared to the vaccination coverage recommended by the World Health Organization, which would require a coverage of at least 75%. The data from the Ministry of Health speak for themselves. In the winter of 2020-21, it had reached 65.3% among the elderly. There was then a progressive downward trend. Until last year when, only 53.3% of the over 65s were vaccinated, with a drop of 3.4 percentage points compared to 56.7% in the 2022-23 season.
"We hope," says Silvestro Scotti, the secretary of the Federation of General Practitioners (Fimmg), speaking about the next campaign, "that the doses will be made available from the beginning of October in our offices," so as to allow doctors to organize themselves "avoiding stops due to shortages of doses or bureaucratic and logistical delays."
(Unioneonline/E.Fr.)