Number of victims to unknown virus growing! State of emergency to be imposed in Ukraine?

Originally posted by tribewilder

Originally posted by JJay55
What impact does this panic have on the political election in Ukraine?

It has the potential to stall the elections thus keeping the current government in power.

Is that good or bad?

Finally found something by the AP on yahoo.com:

Ukraine closes all schools to fight swine flu


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By YANA SEDOVA and SIMON SHUSTER, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 27 mins ago
KIEV, Ukraine – Urging its citizens not to panic, Ukraine on Monday closed the nation's schools for a week to avoid the spread of swine flu and suggested that nightclubs, cinemas and food markets in the west also shut down.
The World Health Organization said Monday there was no evidence that Ukraine had a bad outbreak of swine flu but at the government's request it had sent a health team there to help the country cope.
"But this is not an indication that the situation is severe," said WHO spokeswoman Liuba Negru. "The information we have gotten (from the government), we have to double-check it and make sure it is real, evidence-based information."
Ukraine's Health Ministry said Monday that 70 people in the nation of 40 million have died of flu, but did not say how many of those deaths were related to swine flu. Worldwide, outbreaks of regular seasonal flu claim 50,000 lives each year.
Nevertheless, all schools have been closed for a week across Ukraine, even in the capital, Kiev, where there have been no confirmed cases of swine flu.
In western Ukraine, local authorities advised people to travel only when necessary, a Health Ministry spokeswoman said.
All outdoor markets have been closed in the western region of Lviv, where the governor also urged cinemas, cafes, nightclubs and theaters to shut down until further notice.
Some observers, including the speaker of the parliament, Vladimir Litvin, suggested that these measures are the result of political wrangling ahead of the country's presidential election in January. The pivotal vote could overturn the 2004 Orange Revolution that swept a pro-Western government to power.
"We are seeing a political competition to see who will be the first to lead this process (of fighting swine flu)," Litvin said, according to the UNIAN news agency.
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko met a Swiss shipment of anti-viral drugs at the Kiev airport on Monday.
"The government has declared the situation an epidemic, but there is absolutely no need to panic," she declared on national television.
Her main rival, President Viktor Yushchenko, said thousands of people were infected and called for assistance from NATO, the European Commission, the United States, Russia and other countries.
Konstantin Bondarenko, director of the Gorshenin Institute, a political consultancy, said that Tymoshenko has the most to lose from public sentiment over the outbreak, as state health officials answer to her.
"Right now all the candidates are weighing their political options, looking around for a theme, and this is a very hot topic right now. The panic is there, and they are acting on it," Bondarenko said.
After receiving the shipment of 300,000 doses of Tamiflu at Kiev's Borispol airport, Tymoshenko said her government plans to increase its hoard of the drug by another 300,000 to 950,000 doses.
"This is the supply that will reliably protect Ukraine," Tymoshenko said, ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Viktor Yanukovych, the Regions' Party candidate for the presidency, has not commented on the swine flu uproar. Yanukovych, who was beaten in 2005 by Yushchenko, is leading in the polls with a platform that emphasizes closer ties with Russia.
During the past five years of Yushchenko's presidency, relations with Moscow reached historic lows. Yushchenko's approval ratings at home have fallen to single digits in the wake of the economic crisis, which hit Ukraine hard, and years of political gridlock with Tymoshenko.
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Originally posted by ecoparity
See? This is why posting unconfirmed rumor reports is such a bad idea on ATS. Now in one page the pneumonic plague has somehow become established fact.

I mean no disrespect, but you too post unconfirmed information from your sources. You say that your "reports" are from people on the inside, when none of us here really know this at all. Please give others that same benefit of the doubt that we give you. Thank you.

I would like to see this bickering end. This is what ruined the original swine flu thread and made it an intolerable read. I think those of us here are capable of reading information without needing guidance or censorship.

Seems like we'll know more in few days, so it's probably best not to speculate too much one way or the other.

hisz.rsoe.hu...

Situation Update No. 16
On 02.11.2009 at 20:02 GMT+2

The World Health Organization sent a team of experts to Ukraine today to investigate an outbreak of respiratory disease that’s sickened a quarter of a million people and left pharmacies without masks or flu remedies. A group of epidemiologists, physicians, laboratory technicians and communications advisers is scheduled to arrive tonight in Kiev, Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman in Geneva, said in a telephone interview today. Ukraine faces an outbreak of flu-like illness that’s killed at least 67 people and infected 255,000, according to the country’s first deputy health minister Vasyl Lazoryshynets. About 22 patients tested positive for swine flu, Lazoryshynets said. It’s “difficult to tell” whether the pandemic H1N1 virus is responsible for all the cases, according to Hartl. “There are a lot of unknowns,” he said. The crew of experts will collect samples from patients and send them to the WHO’s influenza collaborating center in London for diagnosis. The WHO may have more information on Nov. 4, Hartl said. Ukraine’s government has closed schools and banned public events. In four of Kiev’s 10 districts, a majority of drugstores posted handwritten signs in their windows that read “no masks.” A central information line for the city’s drugstores said yesterday most stores had run out of protective masks or flu and cold remedies such as paracetamol, called acetaminophen in the U.S., and new supplies were expected later in the week.

The streets of Lviv, the city near the Polish border that’s reported the most cases, were empty yesterday, with museums, restaurants and stores closed, said Halyna Shymanska, a 47-year- old doctor. Shymanska, who runs a private ultrasound diagnostics office in nearby Truskavets, said pharmacies have run out of masks as well as antivirals and basic flu medicines. “People are relying on folk remedies like onion and garlic,” she said in a telephone interview. Garlic and lemons, also used as a flu remedy, are now scarce in the town of Cherasky, in central Ukraine. The price of a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of lemons there has quadrupled to 50 hryvnia ($6.10) in the past week. About 15,000 people are being treated at hospitals across Ukraine, Lazoryshynets said at a press conference in Kiev today. Ukraine has asked the U.S., the European Union, NATO and neighbors for anti-flu drugs. Poland and Slovakia sent protective masks and Roche Holding AG’s drug Tamiflu to Ukraine after President Viktor Yushchenko said the country couldn’t fight an outbreak of pandemic influenza alone, according to a statement from the government.

H1N1, a new flu strain that’s evolved in pigs, humans and birds, has sickened at least 440,000 people and killed over 5,700 since it was discovered in Mexico and the U.S. in April, the World Health Organization said last week. The WHO estimates seasonal flu causes up to 500,000 deaths a year. “It’s a bit like Mexico in the beginning,” said John Oxford, professor of virology at Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry in London, adding that Ukrainian authorities may not have the scientific resources they need to observe the outbreak closely. “One’s first reaction is that not due to any fault of their own, they’re getting into a bit of a flap.” It’s unlikely that the virus has mutated and become more deadly, according to Oxford. “It doesn’t fit with the experience of other countries at the moment, so why should the Ukraine be different,” he said. An analysis of early data on the outbreak suggests severe cases and deaths in Ukraine occurred among adults aged between the ages of 20 and 50, according to the Geneva-based WHO. The U.K. Health Protection Agency estimated on Oct. 29 that about 521,000 of the country’s 61 million residents have gotten the virus since the pandemic began, and 137 of them have died. That’s a death rate of 0.03 percent, similar to the one Ukraine’s numbers indicate. Across the Black Sea, Bulgaria also said it was hit by a flu epidemic, closed schools and banned gatherings, the Sofia News Agency reported, citing Angel Kunchev, head of the health ministry’s department of control of communicable diseases.

reply to post by ecoparity


I agree with what you've been affirming throughout the thread, and feel that you have been a major voice of reason. If there was a pneumonic plague outbreak in Ukraine, of the numbers quoted in previous sources, then I too believe that the Ukraine would either be specifically treating these en masse, or a large chunk of their population would be dying off by now as a result of not being promptly treated for it.

Perhaps part of the issue is that people have developed some confusion regarding the terms "pneumonia" and "pneumonic plague," much as a previous poster noted the confusion between the flu and pneumonia. Pneumonia is just a lung inflammation that can be caused by viruses, bacteria, fungi, or parasites. Pneumonic plague is a form of the Black Plague that is specifically caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium.

No one is disputing that some Ukrainians may have developed pneumonia as a result of an otherwise unidentified pathogen. We are disputing that the pathogen that caused it, beyond all reasonable doubt, was Yersinia pestis. There simply is not enough information currently available, and the quality of that information is not solid enough, to make such a jump to suggest that Ukraine has a pneumonic plague outbreak on their hands. Neither are we suggesting that no one in the Ukraine has or could acquire pneumonic plague. But is it the root cause of nearly 70 deaths in a matter of days? Extremely doubtful at the moment, given how the government is responding to the threat, versus the number of people reported to be experiencing similar symptoms...

-FT.



[edit on 2-11-2009 by FellowTraveler]

Words can get twisted. Maybe a Dr or authority said they had a plague of pnuemonia and people took that to mean pnuemonic plague. Pnuemonic plague and a plague of pneumona are two sperate illnesses.

the epidemic is spreading over the country. The Health Ministry said Monday that of the 70 victims of flu and acute respiratory diseases who died over the last two weeks, 22 have been confirmed to have had the A/H1N1 strain. Earlier it had been estimated that almost 185,000 people were suffering in Ukraine, and more than 7,000 have been admitted to hospitals. Of those, 123 were in critical condition. It is difficult to say how many of the people affected have A/H1N1. Ukraine has too small a number of laboratories to be able to identify the swine flu virus and has to rely on foreign services, which makes the testing process even longer. The government plans to purchase more equipment to monitor the epidemic more efficiently. A mission of the World Health Organization is to arrive in Ukraine soon to help combat the outbreak.

russiatoday.com...#

reply to post by dreamseeker


As the words came very early on in this.. I would have assumed a lot of different illnesses would have been thrown around as people where groping in the dark (so to speak) to understand what was going on.. but again this is not something ATSers created, rather what was put on the table in the few blogs/news outlets that were reporting this, Pneumonic Plague was put forward along with SARS and Bird flu in these outlets.

Edit to add: the number of news outlets that mentioned this outbreak was/is very limited and the information is again very limited and sketchy.

[edit on 2/11/09 by thoughtsfull]

Originally posted by thoughtsfull
reply to post by dreamseeker

 

As the words came very early on in this.. I would have assumed a lot of different illnesses would have been thrown around as people where groping in the dark (so to speak) to understand what was going on.. but again this is not something ATSers created, rather what was put on the table in the few blogs/news outlets that were reporting this, Pneumonic Plague was put forward along with SARS and Bird flu in these outlets.

Edit to add: the number of news outlets that mentioned this outbreak was/is very limited and the information is again very limited and sketchy.

[edit on 2/11/09 by thoughtsfull]

I know this did not come from the ATSers because I have been following this from the begginning. I am talkking about the few internet and media sources that are reporting maybe they misitrupted something and went with it.

reply to post by dreamseeker


Apologies if I miss-understood :-)

or offended.

Has anyone heard directly from y2k or Former_USSR today? In fact, I haven't heard much from JustMike either. Any other localized ATSer's around?

reply to post by thoughtsfull

Ceske Noviny (Czech News) is a pretty reliable source. I can confirm that it basically re-states what the govt here (in Prague) said a couple of days ago, namely that they are taking no specific action for the Czech Republic for the present and will await further information via the WHO and EU medical expert sources.

The Czech Republic does not have a border with Ukraine, by the way. We have borders with Poland to the north, Slovakia to the east, Germany to the west and Austria to the south.

What our authorities said is that they would prefer that Czechs do not travel to Ukraine. But this is a free country and as no national emergency is in place, they will not stop anyone who wishes to go there.

I posted two earlier reports in Czech, each with a translation and link, several pages back in the thread somewhere. If requested I can find them.

Best regards,

Mike


[edit on 2/11/09 by JustMike]

Originally posted by jonke05
Has anyone heard directly from y2k or Former_USSR today? In fact, I haven't heard much from JustMike either. Any other localized ATSer's around?

I was wondering the same thing and about to post it. I see that asen_y2k was logged in not too long ago. Hope all is well.

Good to see the moderators are stepping in a bit... I had to use the ignore button a few times here to try to clean up the thread and make it readable. Not everyone has time to satiate egos.

reply to post by dreamseeker

That's eminently plausible and could well be what happened. People sometimes hear things wrongly or only hear what they choose to hear.

It's also possible that someone, somewhere has noted some of the symptoms reported for some patients and perhaps not knowing too much about all the horrific things flu can do to people, has rummaged through a medical dictionary and "decided" that this must be pneumonic plague.

I think the reasoned explanations provided on here, especially by "ecoparity", leave little doubt that this isn't an outbreak of pneumonic plague -- but there are doubtless cases of pneumonia or secondary respiratory infections. I had this myself back in January. I got the flu for the first time in about 12 years, and then a very nasty secondary bacterial infection of the "opportunistic" kind. My Dr prescribed antibiotics specific to this condition and they did the trick, but I was pretty sick for several days.

Ecoparity, may I express my thanks for your efforts. I found your detailed analysis of the pneunomic plague scenario very helpful.

By the way dreamseeker, I sent you a U2U yesterday. Please check your messages.

Regards,

Mike

New Virus in Wildlife in Ukraine? Worse then swine flu?

We need a good way to sell it... like... swine flu 2.0 or something... hmm

Wildlife in Ukraine consists of elk, deer, wild boars, brown bears, and wolves. Many other animals live there also, but these are animals that are most likely native to ukraine. (wiki answers)

Wolf flu? That's my vote!

Originally posted by jonke05
Has anyone heard directly from y2k or Former_USSR today? In fact, I haven't heard much from JustMike either. Any other localized ATSer's around?

Hi there and thanks for asking... I've just sent a text msg to Asen so I hope to hear from him soon, or else perhaps he'll log in.

As for myself I had to do some work in the city. Talked to some people I know and there's not a lot of concern here. They saw the news reports locally and wonder what's going on but otherwise we don't know much else.

I'll keep you posted but must log off soon. After 10 pm and not had dinner yet.

Mike

Is WHO a good enough source for you?

"On 28 October 2009, the Ministry of Health of the Ukraine informed WHO, through its Country Office in Ukraine, about an unusually high level of activity of acute respiratory illness in the western part of the country, associated with an increased number of hospital admissions and fatalities."

"The situation is quickly changing with increasingly high levels of acute respiratory illness (ARI)/Influenza-like-illness (ILI) activity being observed in Ternopil, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Chernivtsi regions. The higher levels of transmission in these regions corresponds to an increased number of hospital admissions and fatalities associated with severe manifestations of acute respiratory illness."

www.who.int...

reply to post by JustMike


Thanks for the update JustMike....yeah...eat first, post second...

I have found that the best flavor from those of you closest to the situation have provided me with the richest set of raw data...thanks again!

Okay, I just got a text reply from Asen.

He's okay In a few minutes he's going out to get the medications from a guy who went to the Polish border to collect them. So, that's good news. He'll report in on the thread here later.

Edit: Asen gave me permission to post this info on his behalf.

Now I must go and eat...

Mike

[edit on 2/11/09 by JustMike]

Originally posted by Asherah

Originally posted by ecoparity
See? This is why posting unconfirmed rumor reports is such a bad idea on ATS. Now in one page the pneumonic plague has somehow become established fact.

I mean no disrespect, but you too post unconfirmed information from your sources. You say that your "reports" are from people on the inside, when none of us here really know this at all. Please give others that same benefit of the doubt that we give you. Thank you.

I would like to see this bickering end. This is what ruined the original swine flu thread and made it an intolerable read. I think those of us here are capable of reading information without needing guidance or censorship.

The few reports I've posted from sources were posted more than six months ago here on ATS and as usual have always proven to be correct.

That's a million miles away from posting the same news article posted on several different websites which says "this information comes from Internet rumors" and presenting it over and over as proven fact.

My information was subject to the same standard of proof and passed. All I've done is point out that these symptoms being listed were posted as being seen by Drs in the fatal cases six months ago. The fact that information was posted here so long ago and continues to come up in media reports about swine flu outbreaks should speak for itself.

I'm not asking anyone to take my word for anything in this discussion. If you post a source on ATS you need to quote it accurately and not try to take advantage of those who won't bother to go translate it or read it for themselves.

I have no gain here other than to try and deny ignorance, something I see a huge amount of being applied to this subject. If it's your claim that I'm making unsubstantiated claims then please point them out specifically rather than making vague, blanket accusations with no validity.