“Ukraine has joined the global pandemic zone,” Vasyl Knyazevych said.

Tymoshenko said the government would also be banning “all public gatherings, every concert and every cinema showing for three weeks.” The government will also introduce “special regimes” to limit the movement of Ukraine’s citizens from one region to another for non-urgent purposes, she said. Ukraine has borders with four EU countries.

Formerly a major component of the economy of the Soviet Union (both in industry and agriculture), the Ukrainian economy experienced a major recession during the 1990s, including hyperinflation and drastic falls in economic output. Ukraine was greatly affected by the economic crisis of 2008 and as a result the World Bank expects Ukraine`s economy is to shrink 15% in 2009 with inflation being 16.4%

Quarantine was imposed in the country’s nine western regions due to the epidemic of the H1N1 influenza, commonly known as swine flu.

Tymoshenko said the government would also be banning “all public gatherings, every concert and every cinema showing for three weeks.” The government will also introduce “special regimes” to limit the movement of Ukraine’s citizens from one region to another for non-urgent purposes, she said. Ukraine has borders with four EU countries.

Schools have been closed, all public events have been banned and restrictions imposed on people’s movements (Source: Trancy.net)

Ukraine reports 30 swine flu deaths
KIEV, October 30 (RIA Novosti) – Swine flu has been confirmed as the cause of 30 deaths in western Ukraine since October 19, the country’s health minister said on Friday.

Vasyl Knyazevych said the deaths occurred in three regions earlier in the week, but the A/H1N1 virus had only now been determined as the cause.
Knyazevych told Unian news agency that a pandemic had begun in the country.

“Ukraine has joined the global pandemic zone,” he told the agency, adding the government would consider imposing quarantines, prolonging current school holidays and other measures to curb the spread of the virus.

Ukraine – President’s statement on the situation with spread of A(H1N1) flu

Obviously we are facing a difficult situation and today the effective assessment, accurate information on the sickness rate in not only the three regions but in the whole of Ukraine is an important issue. I have instructed the Minister for Health to develop a unified database, to prepare the official statistics, which would in real time inform primarily the Ministry of Health, the Prime Minister and the Government on the situation with the epidemics in all regions of Ukraine. Unfortunately there was no such database before today. We need to conduct the cumulative, effective monitoring. We have the Flue Center, which employs only one person. And my request of May to the Prime Minister to allocate funds to establish a lab, to “arm” us in the situation, when the world is smitten by the epidemic of this flue, to date has not been answered. That is why only one person is working in the Flu Center. This is the center, which is supposed to conduct monitoring in whole of Ukraine, the center, which operates under the auspices of the Ministry for Health and of the Government. I have addressed the Prime Minister with the request to urgently allocate appropriate funds – 50 million hryvnyas for the center to function. (source: ukraine government)

Poland closely monitors Ukraine flu epidemic

UPDATE – As 81,000 are diagnosed with flu in Ukraine and over 2,000 hospitalised, Poland’s health authorities are monitoring the outbreak carefully and ready to tale emergency measures.

The Chief Sanitary Inspectorate (GIS) is monitoring Polish-Ukrainian border crossings. “People who are travelling to Ukraine are being informed about the flu hazard and instructed how to protect themselves against it,” says Tomasz Miszczak from GIS.

Ukraine’s health minister has announced a state of emergency after thirty-three people died from an unknown flu virus in western Ukraine, near the Polish border.

Almost 1000 people, mainly from the Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv Regions, infected with the virus have been hospitalized, including almost 500 children. Hundreds of people have been referred to medical centres and clinics with flu symptoms.

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