Ukrainian 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.
