Health Undersecretary Ferruccio Fazio confirmed on Friday that the number of official cases of the new H1N1 flu in Italy has risen to seven.
The latest two cases, he said, were a 48-year woman in Como, who recently returned from Mexico, and a 40-year-old musician, who was hospitalised in Pavia after his return from New York.
The number of new flu cases in Italy had remained stable at five since last Tuesday, when it was diagnosed in a 32-year-old man from Florence who returned from Mexico, where the outbreak originated, on April 30
On Monday, two cases of H1N1 flu were confirmed in Italy, a 16-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, both of whom are being treated in hospitals in Rome after returning from Mexico.
Italy's first case of the flu was confirmed on Saturday but the 50-year-old Tuscan man had already recovered from a very mild case of the virus by the time he was diagnosed.
A 25-year-old man, also recovered, was diagnosed on Sunday. Both had also just returned from trips to Mexico.
The latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that there are over 2,370 cases of the H1N1 flu in 24 countries.
A total of 42 people have died from the flu - said to be caused by a mixture of swine, human and bird flu viruses - and except for two deaths in the United States have been n Mexico.
