SHOCK! Epidemic of pneumonic plague in Ukraine? (updated at 05:39 pm)

SHOCK! Epidemic of pneumonic plague in Ukraine? (updated at 05:39 pm) MIGnews.com.ua

Ministry of Health has not established the exact diagnosis of the epidemic disease in the western regions of Ukraine. Health Minister Vasyl Knyazevich has given information about spread of diseases in the Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv Regions today at the meeting of Cabinet of Ministers.

According to the Minister, the World Health Organization is ready to render assistance to Ukrainian experts and the Ministry of Health in order to establish the cause of death and development of disease flu in the Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv Regions.

"We are working at receiving the vaccine against influenza A (H1N1) also", - said Vasily Knyazevich and asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to render assistance.

Answering question of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko about the definition of the specific nature of the disease, the head of the Ministry of Health said: "The nature of infections is viral one. But at the moment it is not defined, is it the Californian influenza H1N1, or it is our seasonal influenza. To date, there is no precise diagnosis."

According to the Minister of Health, to date, 12 adults have died in the Ternopil Region. "There are problems, people of working age 20-45 years are sick, there is a problem with pregnant women (we have the death in the Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil Regions), 17 patients remain in the grave condition, 4 of them have artificial pulmonary ventilation", - said Vasily Knyazevych.

3 Employees Of Ukrainian Embassies Checked For A(H1N1) Infection

30/10/2009 10:43 (2 Day 16:51 minutes ago)

http://finchannel.com/Main_News/Ukraine/50681_3_Employees_Of_Ukrainian_Embassies_Checked_For_A(H1N1)_Infection_/

The FINANCIAL -- Three employees of Ukrainian embassies are being checked for infection with A(H1N1) influenza, Petro Poroshenko, the minister of foreign affairs, has announced to news reporters.

"Three employees of embassies reportedly suspected for infection with the A(H1N1) virus. All necessary money for treatment, diagnosing provided urgently. Examination is under way," he said.

The minister has refused to specify countries in which embassy employees are being checked.

Poroshenko says that the foreign ministry formed a fund for immediate allocation of money for treatment in cases when health of the staff of Ukraine 's diplomatic missions is in danger.

The ministry is also working out mechanisms of urgent insurance for diplomats working in the countries where epidemiological threat or emergency situation is announced, to provide them social protection.

Poroshenko has stressed, in 2009 Ukrainian diplomats found themselves without funds for medical insurance, petrol and telephone talks.

In his words, the question of medical insurance for diplomats will be solved through disbursement of money from the national budget's stabilisation fund.

Now, under condition of lack of budgetary money, he added hereto, the foreign ministry is exploring ways of the most expedient insurance of its personnel: either selecting at a tender one company to cover Ukrainian diplomats in all the countries or chose insurance companies in each country separately.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the ministry of foreign affairs has decided to study financing of medical insurance of employees of Ukrainian embassies.

In early June, the health ministry confirmed the first A(H1N1) influenza case with a Ukrainian citizen. In early August, four Ukrainian women were hospitalized with A(H1N1) influenza in France.

The ministry of public health of Ukraine in late September confirmed that a resident of Kirovohrad region is infected with the influenza virus А(H1N1).

Putin tells EU of risk to gas supply via Ukraine: reports

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned the European Union on Sunday that gas supplies via Ukraine may be disrupted because of a payment dispute with Kiev, news agencies quoted his office as saying.

[snip]

Russian gas supplies were cut off to a dozen European countries for two weeks in January as part of a bitter dispute over payments and prices between Russia and Ukraine.

A European Commission spokesman on Saturday told Putin to quit scaremongering over its gas supplies, which he said was “all part of the Ukraine presidential election campaign” which culminates in a January vote.

[snip]

Earlier this week Naftogaz issued a statement saying it will pay for October gas supplies on time. (Russia) declined to comment on Friday.

Strategies to lessen European dependence on Russian gas — and avoid what Brussels sees as recurrent blackmail at the onset of each winter — will be discussed in Washington this week at a summit between the United States and the 27-nation EU.

http://tinyurl.com/y8ghq3t

Freeper Rushmore Rocks posted the important info below on the ongoing swine flu thread .

This is a another freeper thread about the situation in Ukraine .....

Rushmore Rocks to Larousse2; DvdMom; LucyT
My son had a flight booked to Kiev on Tuesday (a business trip, but he just canceled it.) I’ve been showing him all the posts about the epidemic ravaging the Ukraine right now....H1N1 and possibly SARS. Our customer in Kiev strongly suggested that he not make the trip. He said the situation is worse than the media is reporting. The doctors are not sure exactly what this virus is. Lots of hemorrahgic(sp?) pneumonia and the virus is not fitting the established norms. They don’t know for sure what it is and are awaiting the WHO investigation. They are closing their borders, canceling events, closing the schools, etc. They are totally out of any medicines (analgisics, antibiotics, etc.) in the pharmacies.

This is all annecdotal information, but we have known this man for years and have no reason to doubt him. He is seriously frightened.

Kudos to Helblindi at PFI

Helblindi wrote:
Ukraine

The death toll from the flu epidemic in Ukraine has reached 60 people - Ministry of Health
01/Nov/09

The death toll from the flu epidemic in Ukraine as of 17:00 on November 1 to 60 people, including three children.

Reported the press office of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.

In particular, in the Lviv region 29 people were killed in the Ivano-Frankivsk region - 9 persons, in the Ternopil Oblast - 14 people in the Chernivtsi region - 5 people in Rivne region - 2 man in the Volyn region - 1 person.
Total sick 191 thousand 431 people.

Ukraine. Epidemic

Total hospitalized in Ukraine 7524 people....

http://korrespondent.net/tech/health/1013737

I want to call attention again to the number hospitalised in Ukraine and compare it with the numbers for Canada:

http://www.vancouverite.com/2009/11/01/canada-reports-striking-hike-in-swine-flu-and-95-fatalities/

“As of October 24, 2009, (there were) a total of 1,779 hospitalized cases including 351 cases admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) and 185 cases required ventilation as well as 92 deaths had been reported since the beginning of the pandemic,” the government report noted.

Comment

The population of Ukraine is 46 million. The population of Canada is 33 million.

Canada is reporting 1779 hospitalisations for the entire pandemic. Ukraine is reporting 7524, presumably from just the last few weeks.

About 5% of the hospitalised patients in Canada died. This is likely an underestimate because deaths lag hospitalisation. Canada likely has more ventilators than Ukraine. If the Ukrainian hospitalisation numbers are accurate, the virus is spreading much very fast there and there will be many more deaths, likely in the thousands.

http://www.singtomeohmuse.com/viewforum.php?f=1

Well according to Kavkaz, they are calling it pneumonic plague.

http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2009/11/01/11153.shtml

Some snippets below...

“According to the operative data of the Ministry of Health on 1 November, recorded through out the country more than 191 thousand patients with unknown disease of lungs. Of these, 83 thousand are children. Total number deaths recorded - 60, 123 people are dying. “

“According to unofficial information, the death rate in Ukraine from the alleged pneumonic plague is higher than officially announced. “

According to unofficial data, “in Ukraine over the past week about 1500 people have already died. As noted by some doctors, the reason - pneumonic plague. High temperatures from the first day, a burning sensation in the chest, the desire to drink cold and nausea - all of these symptoms are frightening. People die within few days. “

“All the doctors throughout Ukraine say that this is pneumonic plague.

“I have met with friends from the western Ukraine, the doctors say that the lungs of the dead were black. And that, perhaps this is not influenza but pneumonic plague. “

Kavkaz has been over the years a most reliable source of information
for me, and Yersinia is very responsive to antibiotics.

Influenza epidemic: people lie in the corridors and burn for one day

So far, so terrible - such a general mood now prevails in Lviv.
Freaky Wedding. Life goes on and during the epidemic. However, kissing masked uncomfortable. Photo PHL
The town was deserted - the people and cars on the streets unusually low. Instead, continually drive ambulances (at the hospital said that 20 percent of calls these days comes not just from each Chihuahua from healthy people who had succumbed to panic and imagine themselves sick). Most cafes and restaurants are closed. People come out of the house occasionally and “muzzled” (as the people began to call bandages) to quickly go over to the store or the pharmacy. And there and there is no saving oxolinic ointment or bandages ...

Many of Lvov on Monday will not go to work: those who took sick leave, managers themselves who go on holiday for 10 days. Banks, institutions, some shops operate on a reduced schedule. But believers continue to attend church, despite the appeal of the authorities to avoid mass gatherings. Moreover, the head of UGCC Lubomir Husar asked the congregation not to be afraid of “swine flu”. “On this Sunday in the church was not as crowded as usual. Most of the parishioners prayed without masks, as, indeed, himself a priest. Without fear of contagion, was applied to the icons and the cross after communion. Have you read the ancient prayer of the epidemic “, - said Oksana Kozachuk, parishioner of the Greek Catholic Church Street. Pasichny in Lviv.

DEATH DENTIST. In the Lviv region of influenza and pneumonia deaths, 23 people, among them two children. Ill almost 80 thousand people, 1800 of them took an ambulance (just for one day, from 31 October to 1 November, was hospitalized thousand). In Lviv Influenza 40 pregnant women, three - in intensive care with pneumonia. From complications of influenza in the form of pneumonia among young people.

Relatives of 31-year-old bartender Cafe Gasova lamp Andrei Stakhova tell that the guy died five days after he first signs of the common cold - runny nose, sore throat, aching muscles. Four days later he was treated, as usual, from the flu - saw anti-virals, tea with lemon. The doctor did not call - they say, is not the first time caught a cold, I know how to be treated. “And on the fifth day, he suddenly became quite ill, suddenly the temperature soared to 40, brought home an ambulance,” - says the owner of a cafe Yuri Nazaruk. - At the hospital, found that Andrew is seriously impressed by the lungs, it connected to the ventilator. The next day he was gone, he burned in just a day.

It is striking that from contagious ailment die the doctors themselves. 35-year-old ladies from Lviv dentist died in the same hospital as the bartender, the day after. “Pre - from pneumonia. The final cause of death will know after the autopsy “, - said dryly Bogdan Matviy, head physician of 5-second hospital where the woman worked.

TREAT nothing. Tamiflu - a drug from the “swine flu” - in Lviv in a huge deficit. “On Friday, the city issued 100 packages, they are already gone. But the sister cities in Poland and Austria promised to send us a large batch of Tamiflu “, - said the representative of the Lviv city council Andrei Moskalenko. The fact that Tamiflu is not given, told us, and Lviv ladies Marina Dacko, whose husband fell ill with pneumonia. “In the hospital I took him by car - an ambulance for a long time did not come. And there’s such a horror is going on: there is no free beds, people lie in the corridors. Doctors diagnosed with Oleg’s pneumonia, was discharged strong antibiotics and ... allowed to go home. We have two children at home, so not to infect them, took him to the village.
Restaurateur Yuri Nazaruk, who organized in their “Bandera” cafe “Kryivka” Information Center on the epidemic “swine flu”, said that doctors in Lviv can not distinguish the “swine flu” from the usual: “The authorities are lying, that the field has the necessary equipment. For example, there is no test systems that allow the results of intelligence analysis to determine whether a person is sick “swine flu”. How to find out whom to give Tamiflu? In the eye, randomly? Yes there Tamiflu ... Because the city does not even gauze bandages, speculators are selling them for 5 hryvnia ...

“THIS IS NOT A Plague. In Lviv continued to walk rumors that supposedly countrymen die from pneumonic plague, the death rate from which many times greater than from the “swine flu”. Hence, they say, and such a large number of victims. However, doctors insist that it is possible. “The tests do not show the plague, and the clinic of the disease there is another” - calms epidemiologist Lviv Citizens of Natalia Timko.
http://www.segodnya.ua/news/14090782.html

In Kiev because of influenza closed all schools and universities

On Monday in Kiev, close all schools, universities and high schools and high school until further notice. Such a drastic decision was taken at eksrennom meeting in the Kiev city administration. Preschool will continue their work, but parents still advised to keep children at home if possible.

On Sunday, the head of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko appealed to the leaders of several countries and international organizations for assistance in overcoming the epidemic of influenza. “The current threat to national security of Ukraine, which we can not only offset its own efforts, requires me to turn to his closest friends and strategic partners for emergency care,” - says the text of the letter of the Ukrainian President, sent November 1 to the leaders of Belarus, Hungary, Moldova , Poland, Russia, Romania, Slovakia, USA, and EU Commission President and Secretary General of NATO.
Ukraine has already agreed to assist the following countries: Russia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. The current situation in the Ukrainian capital, a better than in many other regions and cities of the country, but urgent action is started in Kyiv, as it is visited by foreigners and people from other regions might be affected by dangerous infection.

In Kiev, established an operational headquarters, which will meet every day, until the epidemic is not the situation normalises. Headquarters will be chaired by the mayor, who demanded to Kiev example of fighting the epidemic.

In the capital of Ukraine recorded 16 763 patients with SARS, which is 20% higher than the same period last year. According to the chief sanitary doctor of Kiev Alexander Ponomarenko, the highest incidence occurs among students, and last week it rose twice. Slight increase in cases - among students, because now going vacation. Also, a slight increase recorded in pre-school. At risk groups - children, pregnant women, as well as the Veterans population, that is, people with weakened immunity. In all places of public catering, trade and other objects of service required the use of masks.

http://news4k.com/11545-v-kieve-iz-z...ly-i-vuzy.html

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/11020901/Romania_Convention.html
Commentary

Hospitalized Students at Romanian Convention Raise Concerns

Recombinomics Commentary 07:22
November 2, 2009

A hotel in the mountain resort of Sinaia was closed Sunday after 40 Romanian and foreign law students meeting for a conference caught swine flu, officials said.

Health state secretary Adrian Streinu-Cercel said 40 people were hospitalized Sunday at the Matei Bals Institute for Infectious Diseases in Bucharest, suffering from medium to severe forms of the flu.

The hospitalization of 40 students in Romania (see map) with medium to severe forms of H1N1 raises concerns. Although outbreaks of H1N1 among students are common, hospitalization of 40 at a conference is not, especially when they have medium to severe forms of the flu.

The conference was attended by 240 students from 31 countries, so hospitalization of 40 represents a high attack rate, which was seen in Ukraine, where over 7383 have been hospitalized (see table). In the United States about 5% of hospitalized H1N1 patients die, so these high numbers raise concerns that the death rates in these countries will climb sharply in the upcoming days or weeks.

WHO has sent a team to Ukraine to investigate, and samples have been sent to London for analysis. Sequence data from both outbreaks would be useful.

The sudden rise in fatal and hospitalized patients across the northern hemisphere in general and Eastern Europe in particular, raises concerns.

http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2009/11/01/11153.shtml

Yushchenko called on to help Ukraine: Unknown virus is killing people
Publication time: 1 November 2009, 23:39

In last 24 hours, an unknown virus (presumed pneumonic plague) infected another 37 thousand and killed 12 more people. The authorities deny that this is pneumonic plague, and insist that people die from influenza, pneumonia and ARI.

Meanwhile, an emergency message from the President of Ukraine to the international community to immediately help in the fight against the virus, only reinforces the suspicion that pneumonia and influenza is not the cause.

“The current threat to national security of Ukraine, which we can not offset on our own, requires me to turn to our closest friends and strategic partners for emergency aid”, - Yushchenko said in an appeal to the leaders of Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia Slovakia, USA, and EU Commission President and Secretary General of NATO.

According to the operative data of the Ministry of Health on 1 November, recorded through out the country more than 191 thousand patients with unknown disease of lungs. Of these, 83 thousand are children. Total number deaths recorded - 60, 123 people are dying.

Day before, on October 31, according to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, 154 200 people fell ill, according to official data, 48 patients died, including two children.

Authorities officially called the disease “swine flu”, “California flu”, “SARS”,”pneumonia”, but doctors say on the basis of clinical data and the rapidity of the epidemic, that it is pneumonic plague.

Many Ukrainians believe that Ukraine has been infected with pneumonic plague by Russian terrorist organization, the FSB of Russia, using bacteriological weapons to destabilize the situation necessary for the armed aggression of Russia against Ukraine.

[snip]

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/51633/

Tymoshenko: Don’t panic during flu epidemic
Yesterday at 15:38 | Ukrainian News Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has called on politicians, civil servants, and leaders of all levels not to allow panic during the A(H1N1) flu epidemic in Ukraine.

Tymoshenko said this during the conference call meeting on Saturday.

“I am applying to leaders of all levels not to allow any panic,” Tymoshenko said.

She said some mass media and officials with powers have started to release incorrect information about spread of some exotic diseases, including the pneumonic plague.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has called on the heads of the central and local authorities to provide people with trustful information about the nature of A(H1N1) flu.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, First Vice Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov called on the population not to panic during the A(H1N1) flu epidemic.

The Health Ministry on October 30 declared the A(H1N1) flu epidemic throughout Ukraine.

The Cabinet of Ministers has introduced quarantine in nine regions, banned organization of mass events, and closed schools for three weeks because of the epidemic influenza.

Ukraine

Influenza epidemic: in western Ukraine, an increasing number of victims
02/Nov/09

The number of victims increased to 63 persons
In Ivano-Frankivsk region viral pneumonia death toll rose to 12 people. In other western regions of the rise in the number of cases.

According to the Head of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration Mykola Paliychuk, today officially recorded 12 deaths.

Twelfth death - is the city of Ivano-Frankivsk, who has submitted information that is on October 28 the patient died, and is currently trying to find out whether it was viral pneumonia, “- said the head of the field.

The Governor informed that Prykarpattya to date the number of patients seeking treatment is 35 thousand people, of whom 52 are in intensive care.

Over the last day in the intensive care unit received 11 people, four have been discharged or transferred to other offices. Seven patients are in very serious condition, of which six - on mechanical ventilation.

At evening, November 1, the number of patients with influenza and ARI in the Lviv region increased to 84 425 people, the number of hospitalized people in 2082.

In the Ternopil region as of November 1, recorded 37 298 cases of influenza and ARI. The number of hospitalized increased to 879 people.

As of 8:00 am Monday, November 2, in the Transcarpathian region registered 7101 patient ARI and flu. Among the diseased - 1803 preschool and school-age in 2410. On the morning of the total number of patients hospitalized 375 people.

***

According to the latest data, the victims of flu in Ukraine was 63 persons. In particular, in the Lviv region 29 people were killed in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast - 12 people in the Ternopil Oblast - 14 people in the Chernivtsi region - 5 people in Rivne region - 2 man in the Volyn region - 1 person. In addition, the total number of cases has exceeded 190 thousand people.

Yesterday, November 1, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko appealed for help to neighboring countries, as well as to NATO and the European Commission.

According to the latest in the world recorded 440 thousand cases of influenza A/H1N1.

http://korrespondent.net/tech/health/1013866

Ukraine

Health Ministry: Ukraine officially confirmed 22 cases of swine flu
02/Nov/09

Ministry of Health announced new data on swine influenza in Ukraine
Ukraine officially confirmed 22 cases of influenza A/H1N1.

Told a news briefing on Monday, Deputy Minister of Health Mr. Lazoryshynets.

He emphasized that, according to the recommendations of the World Health Organization, if the region identified a single case of disease caused by a virus A/N1N1, then the entire region, we treat the protocol precisely against this disease.

According to First Deputy Minister, the appropriate treatment protocol was developed by the Health Ministry and sent to the regions.

It was reported that as of Monday morning, November 2, Ukraine recorded 64 cases of death from influenza and acute respiratory viral infections.

http://korrespondent.net/tech/health/1013926

Comment: Another example of the politicisation of the issue - note how medical aid from Poland is presented by the Ukrainian media

Ukraine

MK: Ukraine to close to quarantine
02/Nov/09

Yesterday in all Orthodox churches in Ukraine zealous special prayer - prayer singing during the disastrous epidemic and smertonosnyya infection, writes about the flu epidemic in Ukraine Moskovsky Komsomolets journalist Oleg Bazak.

UOC-Moscow Patriarchate sent to the relevant circular primarily in the Diocese of Western Ukraine, where the swine flu has claimed the lives of 48 Ukrainians. Another 150 thousand inhabitants of the number of hospitalized suspected A/H1N1.

As stressed in a televised address to the people of Yulia Tymoshenko, from 187 thousand of cases since the beginning of acute respiratory infections are not all put “California diagnosed. Moreover, according to the World Health Organization, only 1 percent of cases of this kind of influenza “comes” to death.

But in Ukraine, the infection can become a real disaster. In Ukrainian cities, and especially in the villages, is impossible today to buy or Tamiflu, or even a simple gauze dressing for 85 cents. All stocks of bandages “grind” for the past week. The Government has allocated from the State Reserve stocks of gauze and the obligation to light industry in the regions of them to sew bandages around the clock.

In Western Ukraine, where bandages are not yet on 19 October (when there has been the first death from swine flu), people enjoy a home-made, “disinfect” these remedies every three hours with ... the usual iron. As for the potent drug Tamiflu, which is used freely sold in pharmacies - now all of his holdings transferred medstatsionaram. It is this panacea of swine influenza is very expensive for the Ukrainians - 800 hryvnia ($ 100). However, as we are assured in the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, on there the company has over half a month can produce Ukrainian equivalent of the French drug, which costs only 128 hryvnia.

Meanwhile, the western regions of Ukraine today resemble the cities from the films catastrophes. In Lviv and Ternopil closed all cafes, restaurants, markets and even banks. Do not operate schools and kindergartens. On the street without people do not want to go. Until the spring delayed even conscription.

Mobile stage, with which at the weekend intended to broadcast nearly two dozen presidential candidates, urgently dismantled - the campaign also “chilled” for three weeks. The campaign nonetheless continues - in the form of power in the criminal charges of inaction and silence of data on dangerous diseases. After the first detection A/H1N1 was recorded two weeks before the first death. During this time, as the opposition says could bring in the country required number of medicines and invited to advise the best European doctors.

Party of Regions, as did not fail to note in one of her TV show spokeswoman Hanna Herman, paid for, in particular, the visit to Lviv on the Polish team of doctors, adept in the fight against influenza. Chief State Sanitary Doctor Alexander Belovolov met this initiative ... indignation: they say, this step seeks to humiliate the opposition of domestic health professionals, who did something much qualified than the Polish and other Eastern European colleagues.

As always, there were overlapping. Quarantine in schools has led to ... eviction of students from dormitories some metropolitan universities, “privilege” in these cases, for some reason received came from the most vulnerable regions. This compelled the Minister of Education and Science Ivan Vakarchuk appeal to the rectors to stop the lawlessness against the inhabitants of the western regions.

Private universities, on the contrary, do not expect to be closed for quarantine. I mean those where the training and pay for exams where the students have made about 300-400 dollars. They flatly refused to disperse regions, where before it arrived ...

Neighboring countries from Russia despite the discordant chorus of TV so far “is not isolated. But border guards in the Bryansk region are working with transit passengers and pedestrians, following the Ukraine, only in gauze bandages and rubber gloves. Kiev-Passenger station every two hours and treated with disinfectants, the junctions of South-Western railway work reinforced brigade sanpersonala.

Also yesterday, the Ukraine received the first humanitarian aid from abroad. Polish President Lech Kaczynski sent to Lviv (for those who are rusty - in former Poland - Ed.) Respirator, 100 thousand gauze bandages and drug Tamiflu. All of these armbands guarded at least a million, and besides them Kaczynski, the president of the hospital will give Ukraine 300 tests to identify the strain of the virus.

http://korrespondent.net/worldabus/1013822

Ukraine flu death toll rises, foreign medical aid arrives (1st Lead)

Nov 2, 2009, 10:14 GMT
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/health/news/article_1510802.php/Ukraine-flu-death-toll-rises-foreign-medical-aid-arrives-1st-Lead

Kiev - The death toll from what has been described as a flu epidemic in Ukraine continued to climb on Monday, as medical assistance from other countries began arriving in the former Soviet republic.

Health Ministry figures placed the number of dead from flu infection at 60 people. Swine flu was responsible for some but possibly not all of the deaths, according to a Health Ministry statement.

More than 191,000 Ukrainians had registered with public health authorities as suffering from flu, of whom 83,000 were children, according to an Interfax news agency report.

Most of those infected were in Ukraine’s western provinces, adjacent to the European Union nations Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.

Some 7,000 flu-infected had been hospitalised, and 123 were listed on Sunday evening as in critical condition, said Health Minister Vasyl Kniazevych, in a Channel 5 television interview.

Four persons killed by the flu had been health workers, he said.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko at a nationally-televised cabinet meeting on Monday called for calm and said her government and the country would be able to deal with the health crisis.

‘We have an epidemic of conventional flu, which is accompanied by a small number of swine flu cases...and one of our tasks is to determine which is which,’ she said. ‘At the same time we have to battle with panic-mongering by irresponsible politicians...and some government officials.’

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko met with a delegation from the World Health Organization on Monday. Kiev needs further international assistance in combating the flu epidemic, which poses a threat to Ukraine’s national security, Yushchenko said.

A Ukrainian military cargo plane loaded with the flu medication Tamiflu late Sunday evening landed at Kiev’s Borispyl airport, to be met by Tymoshenko.

The drug, produced by Swiss-based Roche, would be turned over wholesale to Ukraine’s public health system, to prevent price-gouging by private distributors, Tymoshenko said.

Poland was the first country to donate medical aid to Ukraine, with a lorry-load of medical supplies on Saturday. The delivery going to a Lviv province hospital contained 80 packets of Tamiflu, 300 surgical masks, 70 sets of protective clothing, and a breath- assistance device.

Shortages in flu remedies, surgical masks and even Vitamin C tablets were reported across Ukraine, despite the foreign assistance, as panic buying emptied chemist shelves.

Black market prices of some flu remedies, particularly Tamiflu, had rocketed to as much as 10 times normal retail value, Tymoshenko said.

Educational institutions from nursery schools through universities kept their doors shut across Ukraine on Monday, as a Tymoshenko-announced ban on public gatherings went into effect.

Ukraine’s senior football league, nonetheless, conducted a routine round of matches over the weekend, with games held in stadiums nationwide.

Ukraine

In Ukraine, the flu has already died 67 people
01/Nov/09

Registered in Ukraine 255 thousand cases of influenza and ARI, 15 thousand of them hospitalized.

According to an UNIAN correspondent, reported this today at a press conference in Kiev, said deputy Health Minister Vasyl Lazoryshynets.

According to him, in the ICU was 170 patients, 67 people - had died (of them - 29 in Lviv, 14 - in Ternopil, 12 - in the Ivano-Frankovsk region).

When the Deputy Minister noted that last year with a diagnosis of “pneumonia” in the Lvov region of 245 people died in the Ternopil - 89, in Ivano-Frankivsk - 88.

V. Lazoryshynets also noted that in Ukraine officially confirmed 22 cases of influenza A/H1N1.

“Ukraine does not have a vaccine against pandemic influenza, but negotiations on deliveries of international organizations”, - he said.

http://www.unian.net/rus/news/news-344541.html

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