Like the song goes, too much, too little, too late.....but we shall see.
Dennis, Mary and Tech, thank you for the information.
I feel for the people there. They have been on financial hard times with the mortgage crisis as well (along with several other Slavic countries) and they're broke more than we are I think.Looks like they did the right thing to shut down.  The situation sounds scary.   We shall see what WHO finds when they go there today.

Hi friend from Ukraine. Anything more you can tell us? Let us know..



Snippet from source:
According to the latest data of Ministry of Health, as of 05:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 1, the number of people who are ill with influenza and acute respiratory disease in Ukraine, have increased to 191,000 people, 83,000 out of them are children under 18 years.

More than 7,000 people have been hospitalized. Out of them 123 people are in intensive care department. As a result of the epidemic, 60 people died in the Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Lviv and Volyn Regions. In the Volyn region, in particular,the first fatal case has been recorded. The greatest number of deaths is in the Lviv Region - 29 people.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.


mignews.com.ua...

Hello guys!

Im from Ukraine....really crappy situation here......hope people get better...and this nightmare will end.......

Well...goverment is hiding all real statistics about cases...nobody knows.....but thats really scared when you're trying to buy some medicine but drugstores are empty.....its even hard to buy some vitamins now......

Politians trying to do their best  (or they just trying to impress us i dont know), and im sure thats just becouse of elections coming......will see

Which pictures you would like to have?

 

Yesterdays 48 Deaths in Ukraine are now 67 and the 150,000 Cases are now 205,000.

http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=110269


CNN Ireport (Turner Broadcasting) is saying 500+ Have died in Ukraine
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-348983

They need to inoculate around million people then after two weeks we will know if the current vaccine is still effective.

Hi Albert...


Yushchenko addresses nation, journalists about flu epidemic
Today at 08:23
Obviously we are facing a difficult situation and today the effective assessment, accurate information on the sickness rate in not only the three regions but in the whole of Ukraine is an important issue.

I have instructed the Minister for Health to develop a unified database, to prepare the official statistics, which would in real time inform primarily the Ministry of Health, the Prime Minister and the Government on the situation with the epidemic in all regions of Ukraine. Unfortunately there was no such database before today. We need to conduct the cumulative, effective monitoring.

    We have a Flu Center, which employs only one person.

My request of May to the Prime Minister to allocate funds to establish a lab, to "arm" us in the situation, when the world is smitten by the epidemic of this flu, to date has not been answered. That is why only one person is working in the Flu Center. This is the center, which is supposed to conduct monitoring in whole of Ukraine, the center, which operates under the auspices of the Ministry for Health and of the Government. I have addressed the Prime Minister with the request to urgently allocate appropriate funds - 50 million hryvnyas for the center to function.

So, the first question is the fullness of the information and establishment of full control over spreading of respiratory desists over the territory of Ukraine, the regime of real informing of the public per region and the country as the whole.

Separately I have instructed Regional Administrations to established info-centers for the population of every region to avoid panic or disinformation.

Question number two, which I think is the result of failures in the question number one, particularly the failure to establish the Flu Center, is determining the type of the virus. Today only one thing pulls the Health Ministry and effective system of actions back – determining the type of the virus. In many cases this question remains unanswered. There are even experts, who suppose it is another modified virus - the differentiated virus between the "bird flu" and the "pig flu". But only the operative analysis would answer that. The flu, which the risk group is suffering from, should be identified.

Yesterday I have instructed the Ministry of Health to formulate and present to the meeting of the Government a real action plan, which the entire government team, all local authorities and local government are to be guided by. That means the Ministry should review the national pandemic plan and, taking into account current challenges, to bind it to specific territories and Ukraine in general. The Health Ministry should clearly formulate mandatory recommendations that should guide the citizens of Ukraine, specialists and experts.

Further – be it premises restrictions, or the introduction of quarantine restrictions, or preventive measures, or vaccination, or isolation - it should be a part of a single national Ukrainian plan, which I hope I will hear at today's extraordinary session of the NSDC dedicated to the issue. The plan should include a set of quarantine measures and I will get an expert opinion on the measures already undertaken by the Government. Whether they are sufficient, or whether the process should be developed and extended. The measures we are to apply at the border, the procedure of citizens’ and transport movement between the areas. The supervision over full provision of the population with remedies. And if something is missing, buying and allocating it to the appropriate health care facilities. Providing medical departments with the number of beds necessary in case of the worst possible scenarios. I have instructed the Minister of Defense to mobilize all operational mobile hospitals so they could be deployed tomorrow in the areas, where they are needed the most.

The supply of medicines that we currently have allows us to provide help to all those in need. I have addressed international institutions and partner countries so if the situation develops in such a manner and with such dynamics that it would threaten our capabilities, we will certainly get the required amount of drugs needed for treatment and prevention. At present the required number of medicines has been distributed to the affected people - this is the latest report of the Health Minister.

    I am sure we will be able to deal with this disaster.


I would like to separately address you, dear journalists, because objective and responsible information, I think, helps the country and specialists to deal with this problem. So I ask you to refrain from agitating the country with unverified information and from using the information of dubious nature and the information that is untrue. More than ever before we now must be Ukrainians, help the nation with full responsibility to meet this problem, have a single national plan, support each other. Obviously, in the next couple of days we will assess why the epidemic was more acute in Ukraine than in any other country of European community.

Full Ukrainian text can be read here. www.KYIVPOST.com

Ukraine Mystery Outbreak Sparks WHO Concern as Disease Spreads
www.bloomberg.com...

Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The World Health Organization sent a team of experts to Ukraine today to investigate an outbreak of respiratory disease that’s sickened a quarter of a million people and left pharmacies without masks or flu remedies.

A group of epidemiologists, physicians, laboratory technicians and communications advisers is scheduled to arrive tonight in Kiev, Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman in Geneva, said in a telephone interview today.

Ukraine faces an outbreak of flu-like illness that’s killed at least 67 people and infected 255,000, according to the country’s first deputy health minister Vasyl Lazoryshynets. About 22 patients tested positive for swine flu, Lazoryshynets said.

It’s “difficult to tell” whether the pandemic H1N1 virus is responsible for all the cases, according to Hartl. “There are a lot of unknowns,” he said. The crew of experts will collect samples from patients and send them to the WHO’s influenza collaborating center in London for diagnosis. The WHO may have more information on Nov. 4, Hartl said.

What really got me worried is that they are closing down schools, theaters, etc.....similar to what Mexico did.  And Mexico did this because they had no idea with what they were dealing with...the virulence of the virus that was going around.  Could we be under a similar circumstance in Ukraine?  Because if it's the "same" virus that is here in the states, why close everything down...unless of course it is that the US has underreacted.....makes me wonder...

.

Pandemic (H1N1) 2009, Ukraine

On 28 October 2009, the Ministry of Health of the Ukraine informed WHO, through its Country Office in Ukraine, about an unusually high level of activity of acute respiratory illness in the western part of the country, associated with an increased number of hospital admissions and fatalities

http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_11_01/en/index.html

. Mary008

Roni either they want to take away the attention from the dire economic situation in that country, or they have a "new strain" that is more virulent, or they have the same strain as ours and are overreacting, or we here in the states are underreacting.  But now Bulgaria just declared a swine flu epidemic and they too are closing...don't know how long...and to what extent as I skimmed through the article and haven't got a chance right now to post it.

Well...goverment is hiding all real statistics about cases...nobody knows.....but thats really scared when you're trying to buy some medicine but drugstores are empty.....its even hard to buy some vitamins now......

Politians trying to do their best  (or they just trying to impress us i dont know), and im sure thats just becouse of elections coming......will see

Which pictures you would like to have?

That is cool Glow!   I will contact everyone that I work with tomorrow and we will get together a care package.    I will pay for the postage.  Lets try to get things like aspirin, flu meds, motrin,licquid and vitamins, you name it...I will take responsibility to make sure it gets there.  My son was in the army and I know how to get  a care package where it needs to go !! I work with a lot of great people who will contribute.  If we all work together we can make a difference for someone that really needs it!

maybe and  maybe not.  there must be some way around it

alittle tidbit i found......

thanks to the writer

Ukraine in panic over swine flu; WHO team visits

By YANA SEDOVA and SIMON SHUSTER
Associated Press Writers
< ="" ="text/">

KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine is in a panic about swine flu, with officials closing schools, imposing travel restrictions and limiting public gatherings. Yet many suspect that politics, not health issues, are behind the uproar.

The World Health Organization said Monday there is no evidence that Ukraine's outbreak is particularly severe, leading some political analysts to say Ukraine's politicians are using the swine flu scare to earn political points ahead of the country's presidential election in January.
< ="" ="http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/coxnet/js/daytonbreadcrumbtable.js" ="text/">
"Right now all the candidates are weighing their political options, looking around for a theme, and this is a very hot topic right now. The panic is there, and they are acting on it," said Konstantin Bondarenko, director of the Gorshenin Institute, a political think tank.

On Monday, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko dramatically met a Swiss shipment of anti-viral drugs at the Kiev airport. Last week, her main rival, President Viktor Yushchenko, said 48 people had died of flu and thousands were infected.

The health minister, Vasyl Knyazevich, warned on Friday that nationwide quarantines could be imposed as the virus is spreading "extremely fast."

On Monday, his ministry said 67 people have died of flu, but it did not specify how many of deaths were related to swine flu. In any case, that is a tiny number in a country like Ukraine, which has a population of 40 million.

Worldwide, outbreaks of the regular seasonal flu claim 50,000 lives each year.

At the government's request, the World Health Organization has sent a team to help Ukraine deal with the outbreak.

"But this is not an indication that the situation is severe," said WHO spokeswoman Liuba Negru. "The information we have gotten (from the government), we have to double-check it and make sure it is real evidence-based information."

Bondarenko said Tymoshenko has the most to lose from public sentiment over the outbreak, as state health officials answer to her.

"This is the supply that will reliably protect Ukraine," Tymoshenko said of the shipment of 650,000 doses of Tamiflu, ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Her government plans to increase its hoard of the drug with another 300,000 doses, she added.

The January election is a pivotal vote which could overturn the 2004 Orange Revolution that swept a pro-Western government to power.
Viktor Yanukovych, the Regions' Party candidate for the presidency, has not yet commented on the swine flu uproar. Yanukovych, who was beaten in 2005 by Yushchenko, is leading in the polls with a platform that emphasizes closer ties with Russia.

During the past five years of Yushchenko's presidency, relations with Moscow reached historic lows. Yushchenko's ratings have fallen to single digits in the wake of the economic crisis, which hit Ukraine hard, and years of political gridlock with Tymoshenko.
___
Associated Press writer Simon Shuster reported from Moscow.

WHO SAYS 2500 PEOPLE ARE HOSPITALISED..1.100 OF THEM ARE CHILDREN...

waenderer wrote: WHO SAYS 2500 PEOPLE ARE HOSPITALISED..1.100 OF THEM ARE CHILDREN...

link?

Oh yes, ops144,

What's being desccribed does sound more like pneumonic plague than H1N1 after doing some (superficial) reading on the two.  From Wiki:

Antibiotic treatment for seven days will protect people who have had direct, close contact with infected patients. Wearing a close-fitting surgical mask also protects against infection.^[1]

Without treatment, the mortality rate from pneumonic plague approaches 100%.^[3]

The most apparent symptom of pneumonic plague is coughing, often with hemoptysis (coughing up blood). With pneumonic plague, the first signs of illness are fever, headache, weakness, and rapidly developing pneumonia with shortness of breath, chest pain, cough, and sometimes bloody or watery sputum.^[1] The pneumonia progresses for two to four days and may cause respiratory failure and shock. Without early treatment, patients will die, some within 24 hours.

even if it is plague it is treatable with antibiotics

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/russia/detail/51836/

 

RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service Budapest, Hungary Back to WWA

Summary Event Description Situation Update Google Map Additional Information About Country Population Risk Analysis Photos Satellite Image Seven flu deaths have been reported in the Ternopol region, the only Ukrainian area having a flu epidemic, head of the regional health department Bogdan Onyskiv told a Tuesday press conference. Doctors explained the deaths of young and physically fit persons with flu complications. The flu epidemic in western Ukraine started two weeks ago, yet the type of the virus is still unknown. “It is possible to name the type of the flu only in ten days. Ukrainian and British doctors are making tests. The final results will be announced once a London laboratory confirms them,” Onyskiv said. The Ternopol region has over 10,000 flu cases. Public events are prohibited, and 109 schools with 42,000 students are under quarantine. Experts explain the early cold and flu outbreak with a sharp drop of temperatures a week before the beginning of the heating season. The region did not have flu epidemics for the past five or seven years. The local residents had no immunity from flu. An increase of the cold and flu rate was reported from all the Ukrainian regions, but the situation is generally stable, a source at the Ukrainian Health Ministry said. The rate is high in Chernigov, Lvov, Kiev, Vinnitsa, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kharkov.