This summer should see a 'pause' in the spread of the new H1N1 flu but this will not mean that the risk of an epidemic will end, Italian Health Junior Minister Ferruccio Fazio said on Tuesday.
''We should see a slowdown in the number of cases of the new flu but it is difficult to make accurate predictions because some sectors of the population have less resistance to this virus, especially young people,'' Fazio said.
''Fortunately, this flu virus has so far proven to be not very aggressive from a clinical point of view,'' he added.
There are various explanations as to why young people appear to be more susceptible to the virus including that they generally do not take seasonal flu shots the way young children and the elderly do.
Another theory is that traits in the virus itself may cause the strong immune system of young people to over-react.
This was the case for the Spanish Flu which killed between 70 to 100 million people worldwide between March 1918 and June 1920.
Earlier this month, the Italian Higher Institute of Health (ISS) said it could not rule out the possibility that there could be an outbreak of H1N1 flu, also known as Influenza A and Swine Flu, next winter in Italy and worldwide.
''We cannot rule out the possibility that the H1N1 virus may remain at low levels now to then explode in a pandemic in the autumn the way the Spanish Flu did,'' ISS official Gianni Rezza said.
The latest report from the World Health Organization said that there are now 12,954 confirmed cases of the new flu in 46 countries, an increase of 439 over Monday, and that the death toll has risen to 92, one more than Monday.
All the fatalities have been in North and Central America with 80 in Mexico, where the flu outbreak began, ten in the United States and one each in Canada and Costa Rica.
The US has the highest number of confirmed cases, 6,764, followed by Mexico with 4,174 and Canada with 921.
Compared to Monday there were 212 new cases of flu in the US and 116 in Canada while none were confirmed in Mexico
In Europe there are 136 cases in Spain, 122 in Britain, 19 in Italy, 17 in Germany and 16 in France.
