According to ISS data, obtained through the National System of Epidemiological and Virological Surveillance of this disease (Influnet), the situation is particularly alarming among children under 5 years, with 40.8 cases per thousand in this age group during the last week.

In that period, the rate among children aged 5 to 14 years was 25.02 per 1,000, while among people aged 15 to 64 years it reached 10.10 cases and 5.04 per 1,000 inhabitants among those over 65 years old, according to the report.

Matteo Bassetti, director of the infectious diseases department of the San Martino polyclinic hospital in the northern city of Genoa, said in statements reported today by the website of the television channel Rai News that ‘we are back to the driving force of the 2009 flu, with high numbers before the season’.

It is a wave of infections that is beginning to put hospital pediatric wards and family pediatric offices in crisis, especially in the north of the country, in the face of a number of children affected by influenza viruses much higher than in the last two winter seasons, the source notes.

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