ROME - - The health authorities have warned residents in eastern areas of Rome not to go out due to the soaring temperatures.

 The authorities also report that smog levels are very high and the ozone values are above the warning level, according to Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.

 The municipality’s advice to those in the affected areas, including Prenestino and Bufalotta amongst others, is: “Don’t leave home.”

 Doctors are expressing their concern, too: “The city is under a cloak.”

 Anxiety and depression due to the heat have also led to 100 hospitalisation cases per day, reports Messaggero.

 Health officials say that psychiatric disorders have been amplified by the torrid temperatures during recent weeks.

 Dr Giulio Maria Ricciuto, Director of the Emergency Department of the Grassi Hospital in Ostia reported: “One third of patients arriving in A&E are hospitalised.”

 These new levels of heat are set to reach more than 40 degrees, Messaggero adds. 

 In addition, the higher temperatures and lack of rainfall that characterise the increasingly long drought periods lead to an increased risk of fires, the paper reports.

 This, in turn, is one of the main sources of the particular effects visible even hundreds of kilometres from the fire site, it concludes. 

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