Genova, 12 August (AKI) - A 46-year-old mother was admitted to hospital in the northwest port city of Genoa on Monday after an attack in which acid was thrown in her face.

The woman, who works for a cleaning company, told police she was going to work at around 6am when man with his face concealed carried out the attack.

The woman is married with children.

The attack was the latest in a series in Italy that have targeted women but also men.

In June, a jilted girlfried threw acid in her ex-boyfriend's face in the Sicilian city of Arcireale. The 38-year-old woman faces charges of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm.

In May, in the northeast Italian city of Vicenza, two unknown men threw caustic soda into the face of a 32-year-woman after she answered the doorbell of her apartment.

Earlier the same month, an elderly man allegedly threw a corrosive substance into the face of a pregnant woman outside a hospital near the northern city of Milan before escaping on a moped.

Two attacks in April allegedly involved revenge against exes. In one outside Rome, a woman threw acid into the face of her ex-boyfriend, a male nurse, on a train bound for the seaside town of Ostia.

In the second attack in the eastern coastal city of Pesaro, a 35-year-old lawyer and an alleged Albanian accomplice threw acid into the face of the lawyer's ex-girlfriend, leaving her with third-degree burns to her upper torso.