Ukraine flu fatalities rise, government warns of "battle" (Roundup)

Nov 11, 2009, 13:52 GMT

   Kiev - Ukraine's deadly flu outbreak spiked on Wednesday, as senior government officials warned of a 'battle' to control the disease's spread.

   Flu and flu-related symptoms have killed 189 people in the former Soviet republic, with the latest 15 deaths reported on Tuesday, according to data made public on Ukraine's Ministry of Health website.

   The rising death toll followed Tuesday statements by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko that Ukraine's severe flu outbreak was showing signs of abating.

   'We have (recently) seen a doubling in infections in Ukraine,' Tymoshenko said at a Wednesday cabinet meeting televised by Channel 5. 'This is a trend, and we will have to battle with it.'

   Ukraine's flu outbreak remained concentrated in the country's western provinces on Wednesday, adjacent to the European Union, according to Ministry of Health data.

   Some 1.1 million people were infected with the flu on Wednesday, according to the ministry's estimates, down from a Tuesday high of 1.3 million.

   Since the flu's October 29 outbreak, a total of 17 people have died from the virulent A/H1N1 swine flu virus, of 79 people known to have been infected with swine flu, according to Ministry of Health figures released Wednesday afternoon.

   Medical supplies remained hard to come by, with protective masks still readily available only on the black market, and basic flu remedies, if available, typically sold for two to four times their normal cost.

   Traditional Soviet-era flu remedies, primarily vitamin tablets and anti-septic nose creams, were widely on sale in most major Ukrainian cities on Wednesday, according to news reports.

   Prime Minister Tymoshenko accused President Viktor Yushchenko of sabotaging the disease control effort, by intending to veto 122 million dollars of emergency funds needed to add equipment, staff and supplies to the national health service, the Korrespondent website reported.

   Yushchenko justified his intended veto by citing cash shortages in the national budget and what he said was an illegal Tymoshenko plan to draw the funds from the National Bank of Ukraine.

   'I will not be blackmailed,' Yushchenko said, according to an Interfax news agency report. 'What the prime minister is suggesting ... is impossible.'

   Ukraine's national intelligence agency, the SBU, on Wednesday announced its first major medical supply-trafficking arrest since the start of the flu outbreak, detaining a government worker in Kiev responsible for distributing government-financed protective masks free to retirees.

   The social worker sold 21,000 masks on the black market, before being caught 'red-handed' by SBU agents, according to an SBU statement.