Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

As the government on Nov. 19 announced an end to a three-week national shutdown of universities and schools, panic over the flu epidemic subsided somewhat in Ukraine.

Health authorities said they doubted whether a new, deadly strain of the virus existed in Ukraine. They also said the fatality rate is in line with neighboring Poland and Russia. Moreover, officials have confirmed only 225 cases of H1N1, or swine flu, including 17 deaths.

Those findings, plus the anticipated reopening of schools and universities soon, are likely to ease anxiety over the outbreak that since Oct. 29 has claimed at least 340 lives, victims of flu or acute respiratory diseases.

However, concerns remain high because the death toll is likely to grow higher and 1.5 million people remained sick as of Nov. 18. Moreover, health officials expect a second wave of the outbreak in December or January.

The H1N1 virus from Ukraine was sampled and tested by Medical Research Council Labs in England. The results revealed no significant differences with the flu strains in other countries.

Experts say that immunization remains the most effective way to protect oneself from either seasonal or swine flu.

Vaccines against seasonal flu are widely available in Ukraine and shots against H1N1 are on their way to the country. The first shipment of 930,000 vaccines and one million syringes is to arrive to Ukraine at the beginning of December. The vaccines will be donated to Ukraine by the World Health Organization, as part of a support program for most-affected nations.

“There will be more vaccines coming later on to Ukraine, because the idea is to provide H1N1 vaccination for 10 per cent of the population, ” said Christian Lindmeier, a WHO spokesperson in Ukraine. “It’s up to the Ukrainian government to decide how to use the vaccines, but the WHO recommends vaccinating health care workers, pregnant women, children and people with underlying health conditions in the first place.”

“Vaccines is the only thing that we lack now,” said Mykhailo Valuk, the chief doctor of Kyiv clinical hospital ¹ 9, one of a few adult hospitals admitting patients suspected of having H1N1 flu. This hospital treated the first two cases of H1N1 in Ukraine.

The hospital has a separate department for flu patients with 85 beds, 80 of which are currently occupied. The intensive care unit for infectious patients has six beds and five are now occupied. There are three respirators in the hospital; one is in use by a woman with pneumonia, a complication of the H1N1 virus.

As soon as a patient arrives to the hospital with flu-like symptoms, they are tested for the H1N1 virus, their lungs are X-rayed and medications – such as Tamiflu and others – are given. If the H1N1 test comes positive, the patient is isolated.

Out 208 tests given by hospital ¹ 9 for for H1N1, only nine came back positive. Seven of those patients have already been released while one died from viral pneumonia/

“The flu now is not as bad as in previous years and H1N1 is not worse than other strains. There is only one nuance – if a person develops viral pneumonia out of H1N1, it goes very fast and it’s extremely difficult to treat,” Valuk said. It was the panic, not the epidemic, that made Ukrainians buy out all the drugs from the pharmacies,” Valuk said. “Swine flu became politicized; everybody was trying hard to look like the nation’s savior."