A wave of influenza and other respiratory diseases in Germany is slowly easing with spring around the corner, figures showed on Thursday. The Robert Koch Institute, which monitors diseases and public health in Germany, estimated that 5.3 million acute respiratory illnesses hit the population last week, a slight downward trend compared to previous weeks. According to the report, almost 177,000 laboratory-confirmed ‘flu cases have been officially reported in the course of the epidemic since October. Around 18,000 of these were recorded in the past week, meaning the official trend is also downwar…