H1N1 FLU: ITALY HAS HIGHEST RATE OF INFECTIONS IN EU +RPT+
H1N1 FLU: ITALY HAS HIGHEST RATE OF INFECTIONS IN EU +RPT+
(ANSA) - Rome, October 29 - Italy has the highest rate of H1N1 flu virus infections in Europe according to new estimates released Thursday by the Italian health ministry.
The government's last official estimates in mid-October, placed the number of cases in Italy at 15,455 but Junior Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio said there were probably ten times as many.
Fazio said that ''the latest figures tell us that Italy has the greatest rate of cases in Europe together with Spain,'' which reported 101 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in mid-October for a total 45,000 infections.
The junior health minister said Italy is presently counting 380 cases per 100,000 residents.
But Fazio cautioned that the ''considerably higher'' new estimates resulted from more accurate statistics and not a surge of infections.
''The new information makes it possible for us to compare the pandemic in Italy to other countries in Europe, something we had a hard time doing before''.
Fazio said the most recent data showed the virus in Italy spreading faster than both France and the UK, which only reported 30 cases out of 100,000.
He cautioned however that the real number of infections in Britain was probably higher than that, evidenced by the 128 people who have died of the flu so far compared to ten in Italy.
Four men in Naples died of the virus this week, all of them with serious pre-existing conditions, beginning with a 56-year-old doctor suffering from chronic heart and kidney disease who died on Tuesday.
Early Thursday morning, two more men died of the virus, a 65-year-old pensioner who was already ill with pneumonia and a 50-year-old man with severe heart and lung conditions serving a life sentence in a Naples prison.
Later on Thursday, a 73-year-old doctor with advanced lung disease became Italy's tenth victim of the virus so far.
But Naples epidemiologist Maria Triassi said ''the mortality rate of the H1N1 flu world wide is still lower than seasonal influenza''.
''The problem with the virus is that it's hardest on people with chronic disorders and pregnant women, who need to be vaccinated,'' Triassi said.
Italy began vaccinating doctors, nurses and public safety personnel in mid-October and is expected to start immunizing high-risk cases by the end of the month.
