H1N1 FLU: FAZIO SAYS 'NO EMERGENCY IN ITALY'
H1N1 FLU: FAZIO SAYS 'NO EMERGENCY IN ITALY'
(ANSA) - Rome, November 3 - There is no cause for alarm over the H1N1 flu virus according to Junior Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio who said other European countries are being hit worse.
In an Italian TV interview Tuesday, Fazio said ''we have had 18 deaths in Italy from the virus so far compared to 44 in France, 63 in Spain and 137 in the UK''.
Fazio compared the death toll to the 8,000 Italians who died last year of seasonal influenza as proof that ''this is not a dangerous virus''.
The junior health minister said the mortality rate in Italy was half the European Union average, despite reporting the highest rate of infection.
Fazio was addressing fears after Italy's tenth flu death in under a week, the latest a 37-year-old musician from Salerno who died on Tuesday.
Doctors said Fernando Lettieri, who had recently undergone a kidney transplant, died of pneumonia compounded by a flu virus infection.
Lettieri is the ninth person to die of flu-related causes in the Campania region around Naples after two women, 45 and 72, died there on Monday.
All of Italy's health victims are said to have suffered from pre-existing health problems except two, a Sicilian woman who died in September and a 12-year-old girl from the Naples suburb of Pompei who died of the flu last weekend.
On Monday, the flu claimed its youngest Italian victim so far, an 11-year-old girl being treated at a hospital in Austria.
In the wake of child victims, families across the country, particularly in Rome and Naples, flocked to emergency rooms despite health ministry appeals for people with flu symptoms to stay home and call their doctors.
Responding to parents' concerns on Fazio said that children ''are not at any greater risk of the virus than adults even though they are more prone to getting sick''.
He added that Italian hospitals would begin vaccinating small children by December ahead of the pandemic's expected peak around New Year.
According to the junior health minister, Italy will distribute a total of six million doses of the vaccine by the end of this month, as hospitals begin immunizing pregnant women and people with chronic illnesses.
