Our goal is to estimate the rate of influenza epidemics, using the information readily available from public sources possibly that include functional variables, by adapting or extending the GLS techniques from a multivariate framework to this new framework. So, our particular aim is to estimate dependence components of influenza, using regression models, and predict the rate of incidence of influenza for a horizon of two weeks. We initially model influenza using a traditional linear approach (with independent errors) and later extend these ideas to the functional case (with dependent errors).