Kiev - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Friday blamed swine flu for the death of 11 people so far, as government officials moved to head off an epidemic. Yushchenko announced the death toll at a press briefing televised nationally and described emergency measures the government was taking to control the spread of the disease.
All of the suspected victims had lived in Ukraine's western provinces, and more cases of flu infection were possible, Yushchenko said.
Health Minister Vasyl Kniazevych said medical personnel were monitoring 22 people in western Ukraine known to have shown swine flu symptoms, with one case confirmed, according an Interfax report.
Thirty people, including a child, who suffered from flu-like symptoms have died in the western provinces since October 19, but the cause of their deaths "was not necessarily swine flu ... we are still investigating these cases," Kniazevych said.
Twelve of the victims lived in Lviv province, 12 in the Ternopil province and six in the Ivano-Frankisk province, according to Health Ministry data.
Bohdan Oniskiv, a Ternopil region health official, described the dead as almost all "young, physically healthy people."
Beyond the government figures, between four and seven other people suffering from swine flu-like symptoms died in the last week in Ukraine's Chernovetsky, Rivne, and Ternopil provinces, according to independent Ukrainian media reports.
The official announcements confirming the presence of swine flu, and related deaths, came one week after reports first surfaced in local media of as many as 30 deaths potentially caused by the virus, all in the country's western provinces.
"Unfortunately, we can state that there is in fact a swine flu epidemic in the country," Kniazevych told a press conference in Kiev. "We have a lot of work to do."
The National Security Council, headed by Yushchenko, on Friday held an emergency closed session to discuss anti-swine flumeasures.
Assistance to Ukraine from the World Health Organisation and other international assistance agencies could be "critical" in limiting the extent of the swine flu outbreak, but Health Ministry leadership believes "we have sufficient medical supplies to deal with the disease," Kniazevych said.
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko ordered a massive and unprecedented disease-control programme to go into effect immediately in an attempt to prevent the spread of the disease.
Schools nationwide are to close for three weeks, and "all mass gatherings will be forbidden," Tymoshenko said, in comments reported by Channel 5 television.
