The flu is slowing down again: now the peak seems to be over, but the virus is still running among the youngest children

For the fourth consecutive week, the influenza curve is falling again. Last week, 720,000 cases of acute respiratory infections were recorded, more than 100,000 fewer than 7 days earlier. The drop affects all age groups, except for the youngest, where there has been a reversal in the last 7 days. Here, the incidence is on the rise among small children: among those aged 0-4 years we are at around 33 cases per 1,000 attended. These are the salient data from the latest bulletin of the RespiVirNet surveillance of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità. This year the peak of infections was reached at the end of December, Result? Since the beginning of the season, flu and seasonal illnesses have put as many as 9.2 million Italians to bed. High numbers, but which do not suggest a record season like that of two years ago.

In the week of 12 January to 18 January, surveillance revealed a rate of 12.7 infections per 1,000 inhabitants. The most affected are children between the ages of 0 and 4 (33.05 cases per 1,000). The rate is between 11 and 17 cases per 1,000 in the other age groups, falling to 8.07 cases per thousand in the over-65s. Among the Regions, the intensity remains very high in Campania, Basilicata, Apulia and high in Sardinia, while it has already fallen below the basal level in the Autonomous Province of Trento. Hospital admissions to the emergency room and admissions for respiratory syndromes remain stable, while the number of serious cases is falling. 'The incidence is still decreasing, and it is highly unlikely that it will return to the levels of the peak recorded at the end of December. Still, however, especially in the community flow and in the 0-4 age group, the circulation of respiratory viruses remains high," experts from the Iss's Department of Infectious Diseases said in a note. "Even the hospital flow still records a significant number, although decreasing, of severe cases, mainly caused by influenza viruses in unvaccinated people." The presence of influenza viruses is stable, representing about 30% of the samples analysed by the laboratories belonging to the surveillance network. As regards the type of virus, the A/H3N2 virus prevails in the community (especially in the K variant), while a similar percentage of A/H3N2 and A/H1N1pdm09 viruses is observed among hospital admissions

 "By now there is no doubt: we have passed the peak of flu cases. Now we will see how the descent will be, which I expect to be progressive. In any case, with around 720,000 infections per week, I would say that we are definitely on the decline. These are the words of virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco, director of the School of Specialisation in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine at the University of Milan Even for Gianni Rezza extraordinary professor of Hygiene and Public Health at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milan "Once the holiday season is over, however, the flu does not seem to be rearing its head much, even though we are still in the midst of the seasonal epidemic". 'So far,' Rezza writes on his Facebook page, 'it has been a rather important season, more or less similar to that of two years ago, both in terms of the trend of the epidemic curve and the intensity of the peak. The much-vaunted k variant, however, has not made the current season any different from those that preceded it. Unlike what was observed in Japan, there was no resounding anticipation of the flu season (as, for example, happened in our country in 2022-23), and the clinical impact was and still is relevant, but perhaps less so than that reported in Australia and the UK. Finally, H1N1 predominates among severe cases, which would seem to contradict what has been reported about a greater aggressiveness of the k variant, which is also largely dominant among EU cases'. The season, however, 'is not over yet, and so we should be cautious about future trends. Above all, experience should teach us that making predictions, particularly at the beginning of the season, is an exercise that exposes us to a number of errors, because influenza viruses are very capricious,' Rezza concludes.