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HEALTH

Italy to airlift citizens out of coronavirus-hit Chinese city

The Italian government announced it will be sending a plane to evacuate citizens from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the SARS-like coronavirus.

Published: 29 January 2020 15:17 CET
Italy to airlift citizens out of coronavirus-hit Chinese city
Health specialists getting ready to carry out a check for coronavirus on passengers at Rome's Fiumicino airport. Photo: ADR/AFP

The foreign ministry said the aircraft, which will be carrying a medical team, would depart on Thursday “once all the necessary authorisations have been obtained from the Chinese authorities”.

READ ALSO: How concerned should you be about the coronavirus in Italy?

It did not say how many Italians would be airlifted out, or whether they would be placed in quarantine, though those transported home would have to follow “a protocol laid out by the health ministry”.

The flight was arranged by the Italian foreign ministry's crisis unit in liaison with the defence ministry, the health ministry, and Rome's Spallanzani Hospital, which specialises in infectious diseases.

Chinese airline staff at Rome's Fiumicino airport. Photo: AFP

Between 60 and 70 Italians are currently in Wuhan according to media, though the Corriere della Sera and Repubblica dailies said that not all of them wanted to be evacuated.

Citizens of several other countries have already been evacuated from Wuhan.

The Italian foreign ministry advises against all travel to Hubei province due to the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, which has killed 132 people and infected around 6,000.

There have been no confirmed cases of the virus in Italy at the time of writing.

There have been a number of suspected cases, including in Bari, Parma, Lucca and Naples but all tests have so far come back negative.

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HEALTH

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

As Italy’s new school year began, masks and hand sanitiser were distributed in schools and staff were asked to prevent gatherings to help stem an increase in Covid infections.

Published: 11 September 2023 12:48 CEST
Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

Pupils returned to school in many parts of Italy on Monday and authorities said they were distributing masks and hand sanitiser amid a post-summer increase in the number of recorded cases of Covid–19.

“The advice coming from principals, teachers and janitors is to avoid gatherings of students, especially in these first days of school,” Mario Rusconi, head of Italy’s Principals’ Association, told Rai news on Monday.

He added that local authorities in many areas were distributing masks and hand sanitizer to schools who had requested them.

“The use of personal protective equipment is recommended for teachers and students who are vulnerable,” he said, confirming that “use is not mandatory.”

A previous requirement for students to wear masks in the classroom was scrapped at the beginning of the last academic year.

Walter Ricciardi, former president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS), told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper on Monday that the return to school brings the risk of increased Covid infections.

Ricciardi described the health ministry’s current guidelines for schools as “insufficient” and said they were “based on politics rather than scientific criteria.”

READ ALSO:

Recorded cases of Covid have increased in most Italian regions over the past three weeks, along with rates of hospitalisation and admittance to intensive care, as much of the country returns to school and work following the summer holidays.

Altogether, Italy recorded 21,309 new cases in the last week, an increase of 44 percent compared to the 14,863 seen the week before.

While the World Health Organisation said in May that Covid was no longer a “global health emergency,” and doctors say currently circulating strains of the virus in Italy are not a cause for alarm, there are concerns about the impact on elderly and clinically vulnerable people with Italy’s autumn Covid booster campaign yet to begin.

“We have new variants that we are monitoring but none seem more worrying than usual,” stated Fabrizio Maggi, director of the Virology and Biosafety Laboratories Unit of the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome

He said “vaccination coverage and hybrid immunity can only translate into a milder disease in young and healthy people,” but added that “vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable continues to be important.”

Updated vaccines protecting against both flu and Covid are expected to arrive in Italy at the beginning of October, and the vaccination campaign will begin at the end of October, Rai reported.

Amid the increase in new cases, Italy’s health ministry last week issued a circular mandating Covid testing on arrival at hospital for patients with symptoms.

Find more information about Italy’s current Covid-19 situation and vaccination campaign on the Italian health ministry’s website (available in English).

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