Health officials on Dec. 19 said over 3 million people have fallen ill from flu-related ilnesses, some 171,000 have been hospitalized and 539 have died since late October.
The nation’s lawmakers on Dec. 14 re-floored a measure (vetoed on Nov. 3 by President Victor Yushchenko) to provide Hr 1 billion to combat the epidemic. Parliament reluctantly earmarked Hr 600 million last week, but health officials have yet to announce or implement measures to procure and administer anti-flu vaccines.
Google flu trends, which correlates the number of people who search for flu-related topics and the number of people who actually have flu symptoms, illustrates the second spike in flu-related illness. As of Dec. 19, flu-related illness exceeds the epidemiological threshold in most of country.
