# 3977
If you follow the Ukrainian situation on Twitter, or on some of the more sensationalized websites, you might be tempted to believe that nation is battling some horrifically mutated (or bioengineered) pandemic virus.
For reasons that I can’t even begin to fathom, some people love to spread false rumors and to stoke people’s fears.
This is an evolving story, and over time we will learn more. But for now, there appears to be nothing more ominous than a serious outbreak of influenza going on in the Ukraine.
While the numbers we get out of that region are constantly changing, and surveillance and reporting leave a lot to be desired, the number of fatalities we’ve heard about isn’t out of line given the number of cases reported.
The World Health Organization has had a team on the ground in the Ukraine now for a week, and yesterday released the following statement regarding their investigation (hat tip Treyfish on FluTrackers).
WHO staff review pandemic prevention steps in Ukraine
8 November 2009
The WHO team of experts has continued its work in Ukraine over the weekend. While four members continued investigations in Lviv – one of the most affected regions in the country – two others travelled 100 km west of the capital, Kyiv, to Zhytomyr: a medium-sized city and a regional (oblast) capital. The health authorities there have invested resources in preparing for the pandemic in line with the central Government’s guidelines. The two team members went to the area, along with WHO’s representative in Ukraine, to see how a typical region prioritizes action to prevent an outbreak of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza.
A total of 1.3 million people live in the wider Zhytomyr oblast, explained the head of the oblast health administration to the WHO team. As of 7 November 2009, nearly 20 000 people had reported acute respiratory illness (ARI) in the previous 8 days. The region confirmed an ARI epidemic 2 days ago, with the numbers breaching a defined threshold (set using the weekly ARI incidence for the past 10 years).
There are 747 hospital beds earmarked for infectious patients (406 are designated for children) and a contingency plan is in place to allocate an extra 1415 beds at extremely short notice. The emergency response plan also includes the transformation of one hospital into a dedicated treatment and care unit for pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza.
Hospital beds are just one part of the arsenal. Health administrators have stockpiled medication for every hospital in the oblast, equipping each with enough medication to treat patients for at least 10 days and giving them access to extra medication if stocks run out. The hospital stores also include protective equipment, such as surgical masks for staff and patients, and much other equipment that can help combat a major outbreak.
Implementation of the emergency plan is still on hold, but hospital and health officials are confident that they have done all that they could in the planning stage, which began in April 2009 with WHO’s announcement of a possible pandemic. Web sites have been set up that provide both general and technical information that the public can easily access, alongside the latest recommendations for all the 30 000 health staff employed in the oblast. Twenty-four-hour hotlines are open for communication with the public, and extra lines and staff are ready to take calls if a major outbreak occurs.
After touring three hospitals, the WHO team leader said, “We still cannot accurately predict what kind of impact the H1N1 virus will have, but from the preparations I’ve seen today in this one part of Ukraine, it’s clearly a priority for public health.”
The next two reports from the Kyiv Post, in the second of which the Prime Minister reports a drop in the number of new flu cases.
Flu, respiratory infections kill 155 in Ukraine
Today at 11:15 | Interfax-UkraineAs of November 9, a total of 155 people have died of flu and acute respiratory infections, including 11 people on November 8, the Health Ministry reported.
Since the start of the epidemic, 969, 247 have had flu and respiratory diseases.
A total of 48, 972 have been hospitalized, 446 people are currently in intensive care department.
A total of 11 people died on November 8 alone, including three fatalities in Chernivtsi region, two in Lviv region, two in Ivano-Frankivsk region, two in Rivne region, one in Vinnytsia and one in Khmelnytsky region.
The epidemic threshold for influenza and acute respiratory infections has been exceeded in 13 regions and in Kyiv.
Tymoshenko: Flu rate in Ukraine goes down
Today at 12:52 | Interfax-UkraineUkrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has reported a decline in the rate of new cases of flu and acute respiratory viral diseases in Ukraine.
"Certain positive signs have appeared of the decline in the rates of the flu and acute respiratory diseases. While on November 4 there were 127, 254 sick people, on November 8 - 32, 468. Certain positive dynamics are apparent," she said at a Monday meeting with representatives of the World Health Organization in Kyiv.
She said that in 17 regions the sickness rate still exceeds the epidemic threshold, but "in 10 it has gown down below the threshold and the sickness rate is already declining."
Tymoshenko said that in 2007, "the worst year so far", 6.28 million people contracted flu and acute respiratory disease in the first nine months while the figure for this year is 5.316 million. She said that the rate of deaths caused by pneumonia complications stood at 4, 720 in the first nine months of 2007 and at 3, 822 this year.
"The trend has been the same in the past few months of 2009. While in October-November 2007 688 people died, during the same period of 2009 15% less," she said.
And from Canada’s Globe and Mail we get this report on the panic and misinformation spreading through the Ukraine.
Flu fears and rumours paralyze Ukraine
SUSAN SACHS
KIEV — From Monday's Globe and Mail Published on Monday, Nov. 09, 2009 12:00AM EST Last updated on Monday, Nov. 09, 2009 4:41AM EST
With classes cancelled after the government declared a flu epidemic, Eric Barsadanyan and his friends spend their days hunched over cigarettes and soft drinks in the gloom of an empty coffee shop on the third floor of an equally empty shopping mall.
They had not heard of the H1N1 virus even a week ago. But they are pretty sure they understand it now.
"You catch it from imported food and clothing that isn't clean," said Mr. Barsadanyan, an 18-year-old first-year medical student who wears his close-cropped hair shaved into stripes along the sides.
He is not worried because he heard that the Ministry of Health has taken a somewhat unusual step. "They sprayed the city," he explained, "with the necessary products."
Ukraine has been awash with such misinformation about H1N1 for the last week, since Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko set off a public panic by shutting schools, banning public gatherings and warning that whole cities might have to be quarantined to prevent the spread of the disease. They were the most draconian measures taken by any country since the flu first appeared in Mexico last spring.
