Covid-influenza: big vaccine forgotten, risk of 20,000 dead season

From totem to defeat the pandemic to great forgotten. The vaccine to defend against influenza and Covid no longer appeals to Italians, including the elderly those who are recommended to immunise themselves ahead of next autumn-winter. A new intense flu season is expected to be even worse than last year's, when we had as many as 15 million influenza and parainfluenza virus infections in Italy. So at least say the signs coming from the southern hemisphere, where with the passage of winter the viruses, as in the case of Australia, have massively appeared.

"It is possible that we will see a season with significant activity of influenza-like syndromes," warns Francesco Vairo, head of the Regional Infectious Disease Surveillance Service at Spallanzani. "The data from the southern hemisphere indicate a season with a high incidence of cases in an epidemiological framework where influenza, in fact, but also the respiratory syncytial virus and the Covid coexist. We don't have a glass ball, but I think there will be a lot of activity and we need a bigger push for the vaccination campaign to come'.

"We must remember that complications of influenza can lead to death, 5-10 thousand people every year. At the end of 2023, we saw a boom in flu infections that added up to Covid and respiratory syncytial virus (Rsv). Let's think of the deaths these pathogens could cause together and let's take a provincial town with 20,000 inhabitants off the map of Italy. We cannot accept this, and the flu, Covid and Rsv vaccination is the only recommended weapon for the elderly, frail and immunocompromised,' stresses Emanuele Nicastri, director of the High Intensity Care Infectious Diseases Unit at the Inmi Spallanzani in Rome. Nicastri's invitation is to already think about planning with one's family doctor the vaccination calendar that should start at the beginning of October in many regions.

This is why it is crucial to try to avoid organisational delays in the regional distribution of doses and the start of the new vaccination campaign. It is a pity, however, that the last one, that 2023/24 of the return to normality after the Covid emergency, was a real flop. The blame? A little bit of the so-called 'vaccination fatigue' of Italians and a little bit of the delay and lack of determination to get the network of pharmacies and doctors' offices for immunisations off the ground immediately. This is borne out by the plummeting numbers for both influenza and Covid, even among the most fragile and therefore at-risk individuals. For the former, coverage has fallen to the levels of five years ago, reaching only 18.9% of the general population compared to the previous year (20.2%), and above all only one out of two elderly people: last year only 53.3% of the over-65s were vaccinated against influenza, a far cry from the 65.3% achieved at the height of the pandemic and in any case far from the minimum target of 75% indicated by the WHO for this vaccination.

Even more resounding is the flop of vaccines against Covid: as emerges from the data of Lab24 of the Sole 24 ore, which collects all the data from the beginning of the pandemic, only 2.2 million Italians (3.75% of the general population) were immunised in the last vaccination campaign, and in particular only 1.885 million over 60 (the age from which it was recommended). A real flight in the face of the more than 9 million doses available, which now risk ending up in rubble, and despite the fact that the Sars-Cov 2 virus is still doing damage, especially among the most fragile: since the end of the emergency on 5 May 2023 there have been 7348 deaths in Italy - again according to Lab24 data - due to Covid, of these 5552 over 60. This is why vaccinating is an opportunity for everyone, but for the elderly it can really be a lifesaver.