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Three Updates From The Ukraine

 

# 3940

 

 

While the Internet rumor mongers are going crazy speculating over bizarre scenarios surrounding the outbreak of respiratory illness in the Ukraine, calmer voices are reporting in a more reasonable (and far more believable) fashion.

 

Three quick reports, therefore, from the Kyiv Post.  The Ukraine’s largest English language newspaper.

 

WHO experts arrive in Ukraine
Today at 15:50

A group of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) has begun to work in Ukraine, the head of the international mission of the WHO Regional Office for Europe, Jukka Pukkila, said at a briefing at the Health Ministry in Kyiv on Tuesday.

"Our group has arrived to provide support to the Ukrainian Health Ministry and investigate the situation," Pukkila said.

He said that the group includes nine experts in various fields, including virology and epidemiology.

Pukkila said that the mission had arrived in the country at the invitation of the Ukrainian president. He said that experts are planning to study the cause of the extremely high rate of acute respiratory infections.

He said that the experts would also study swine flu cases that were confirmed by the Ukrainian Health Ministry.

Over 10 percent of medical personnel in Lviv have flu and acute respiratory infections
Today at 17:06

Lviv, November 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) - A total of 760 medical employees have come down with the flu and acute respiratory infections, chief of the healthcare department of Lviv city council, Volodymyr Zub, said at a press conference on Tuesday

"Fifteen of them are receiving in-patient treatment," Zub said.


According to him, in particular, 198 doctors, 312 nurses and 257 other medical personnel have flu and acute respiratory infections.


He said that currently over 10% of the staff of the city's medical establishments are ill, and moreover, their number is growing.

Viral pneumonia rate growing in Lviv
Today at 16:54 | Interfax-Ukraine

Lviv – The number of people with viral pneumonia is rapidly growing in Lviv, the city's top health official Volodymyr Zub has said.

"A total of 323 people have been diagnosed with pneumonia in Lviv, whereas the day before yesterday the number was 232," he said at a press conference on Tuesday.


As of 1100 on Tuesday, 27, 273 people with flu and acute respiratory infections have been registered in Lviv, including 11, 000 children. Twelve people, including one in a critical state, are currently in intensive care. Ten people in the city have died of flu and acute respiratory infections.

 

While all of this is obviously a concern, none of these reports gives any credence to the wild (and unsubstantiated) reports of `pneumonic plague’ or a Russian `bio-attack’, or of `thousands of deaths’ that have recently surfaced in some newspapers, and are spreading on the net.

 

A 10% infection rate among Health Care workers is just about where you’d expect it to be during an influenza outbreak.   And the number of pneumonia cases reported in Lviv (pop. 775,000)  works out to be about 1 for every 2400 residents in that city.  

 

If there is anything unusual about this outbreak, no doubt the WHO team, currently investigating, will uncover it.

 

For now, however, there is no evidence of anything more ominous here than a large outbreak of pandemic H1N1 influenza, possibly along with a mix of other respiratory viruses common this time of year. 

 

This blog will, of course, keep close tabs on the situation and will pass along credible reports as they come in.   

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