Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Ukraine's Heath Ministry on Nov. 6 reported more deaths and acute respiratory illnesses related to the A/H1N1 pandemic. Ukraine’s Health Ministry on Nov. 6 reported the death toll of patients with flu-related and acute respiratory illnesses (ARI) had jumped to 135, with the total number of registered cases increasing to 871, 037.

That’s 40 more deaths and 237, 160 more cases than the Heath Ministry reported a day earlier.

While the total number of flu-related and acute respiratory illnesses is on par with previous years, the number of cases registered daily has since mid-October exceeded the epidemic threshold, leading flu specialists in Ukraine and abroad to sound the alarm bells.

Several thousand people in Ukraine die each year from acute respiratory illnesses (ARI), including flu-related ones. For the first nine months of 2009, for instance, 3, 822 people died from flu and ARI. But the spike in deaths in the last month has raised fears that the number of victims during this flu season could grow much higher.

Ihor Pokanevych, head of the WHO office in Kyiv, told Deutsche Welle on Nov. 5 that health authorities are watching to see if the seasonal strains of the flu and the swine flu will mutate into more virulent form of virus. Ukraine has become a test case of sorts.

“The outbreak in Ukraine may be indicative of how the virus can behave in the northern hemisphere during the winter season, particularly in health care settings typically found in Eastern Europe,” Pokanevych added.

Related article: Pandemic politics