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Health Ministry sees no need to publish information about confirmed cases of A/H1N1 flu

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Nov. 16, 2009, 3:11 p.m. | Ukraine — by Interfax-Ukraine
The Health Ministry of Ukraine sees no need to publish information about a number of laboratory-confirmed cases of А/Н1N1 flu. "Ukraine has pandemic of А/Н1N1 flu and now it doesn't much matter how many cases are confirmed, as we should treat everyone equally," Ukrainian First Deputy Health Minister Vasyl Lazoryshynets said at a briefing on Nov. 13.

He noted that in Ukraine as of Nov. 13, since the start of the epidemic 1.25 million people have contracted flu and acute respiratory infections.

The first deputy health minister said that A/H1N1 flu had been laboratory-confirmed in 14 people.

According to Jukka Pukkila, the Head of a WHO international mission that has been in Ukraine for two weeks, the mission will publish its final decision by the end of this week.

"According to the preliminary results, there is no difference concerning the rate of A/H1N1 flu infection in Ukraine compared to other countries," he said.
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Anonymous Nov. 16, 2009, 7:39 p.m.    

They see no need to publish data? In an open society, all information should by default be freely available, and otherwise a very good explanation should be given why the information must be secret.

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Anonymous Nov. 16, 2009, 8:55 p.m.    

Information should indeed be freely available, though pushing it through the major media outlets again and again leads to nothing, but panic. Publishing it on some governmental statistical resource for those who really need it would be a more democratic choice though. Still, if we assume that media is free, the Ministry has no bearing over what goes in that evening news broadcast. And sensationalism-driver channels will continue reporting flu cases for as long as it adds viewers.

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