Ukraine: More than 1million people now infected with mysterious disease or pneumonic plague, 2000 health workers sick

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - 08:40
While the wolrd still awaits the results from the WHO gene tests that has been sent more than a week ago to the WHO lab in Mill Hill, London more than 1 million people have now been infected with a "flu and acute respiratory illness" otherwise known as pneumonia.

The official infected rate is now 1,031,597 according to the Ukraine Health ministry. The deathrate now stands at 174.

Meanwhile the silence from the WHO raises concerns, the gene sequencing should mostly of been completed but there is no word yet from the WHO, this is causing panic.

A well known Kharkiv based pediatrician and author Yevgeny Komarovsky told people not to panic though in a recent website post and gave his view of the epidemic

[…] If we double the number of people sick with the swine flu (since no more than half the people with the flu go to a doctor) and compare it with other death rates, we will see that the death rate is even lower than with the regular flu. Pneumonia is the most common cause of death in every country at any time. Pneumonia often accompanies many other diseases and traumas. If each case of pneumonia was reported by the media, nothing good will happen. […]



The worrying fact after all is that the WHO has not released the gene sequencing and this if it is the pneumonic plague is spreading fast at around 200 000 people per day.

Another thing is that almost 2000 pysicians and more than 1500 young specialists have fallen ill, according to the Health ministry of the Ukraine you can see below (translated to enlish)

As on 06.11.2009, in Ukraine sick 687 physicians and more than 1500 young specialists. In quarantine areas the incidence ranges from 0.5% to 1.3% of the total number of doctors and from 0.5% to 1.2% of younger professionals. In addition, 4 physicians and 2 junior personnel died as a result of their professional duties.

This situation complicates the already difficult work of physicians who work with the excessive load. In order to support regions with the most complex epidemiological situation, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine formed more than 570 mobile teams, composed of family physicians, pediatricians, infectious disease, anesthesiologists and others. specialists.

On the other hand a blogger called Maryna Reshetnyak said in a blog post people need some sense:

Initially, health care officials denied the fact that people were dying because of swine flu, saying that the deaths had been caused by an unknown infection, which led to pneumonia. But the thought of an “unknown infection” scared the public even more. Later on, officials admitted that there was an H1N1 epidemic starting in Ukraine. The result? People rushed to drug stores and soon after pharmacies were out of stock of face masks, vitamins and immunity-boosting supplements.


Inconsistency in health officials’ reports, plus a lack of information, created many rumors and much gossip. And Ukrainian politicians saw the epidemic as another opportunity to appear on TV and boost their image. Major TV channels ran 5-hour talk shows focused on the flu that were filled with politicians, many of which featured not a single person with a medical education.

In this environment of “collective madness,” the Internet has served as a medium for unbiased information about the epidemic, as well as professional advice on what to do and how to protect yourself and your family from the virus.

A balanced professional analysis of the flu epidemic by Dr Komarovskyy, a well-known pediatrician with more than 30 years of professional experience, was posted on his personal Web blog. This was perhaps something people were waiting for, as the post was widely sent around and has appeared on popular forums and social networks. It was also republished by major Ukrainian Internet media such as Ukrayinska Pravda. In a few days, the post got about 900 comments from readers.


More from Dr Komarovsky

During the first two days of the hysteria, the main advisers and teachers for the nation were politicians – parliament members, ministers, former ministers, etc. When a doctor appeared on TV, it just so happened that the politicians could talk better…The highest point of the panic was after a claim by a presidential candidate (!) that the deaths of Ukrainians were being caused not by a flu, but by a pneumonia-inducing plague. I want to highlight, this was not said by an old lady selling sunflower seeds at the market, but by a presidential candidate of a European country.

Another presidential candidate complained that drug stores did not have enough Oxolin ointment in stock [which in Ukraine is believed to be effective in prevention of the flu] and blamed this on “criminal pharmacists.” For some reason, nobody was able to explain to the candidate that the effectiveness of this ointment is not clinically proven and has never been used in the USA or France or any other country.

OK, there are no doctors among the presidential candidates and perhaps they cannot afford a public health adviser. But a few of our politicians have a medical degree! One of them mixed up Theraflu with Tamiflu [the only medication proven to be effective against H1N1]. The other one did not see any difference between regular and viral pneumonia…But when I heard a doctor – a Parliament member and a secretary of the Parliament's Public Health Committee - say that Tamiflu is just an immunity booster and that at a meeting of National Security Council they decided to purchase Oseltamyvir instead I became really scared and ashamed. When major public health decisions in this country are being made by people who do not know that Tamiflu and Oseltamyvir are two names for one medication – what can we expect? …Thus, we should not be surprised by the fact that the government is purchasing medication that are not used anywhere in the world.

My advice to the government: Ask WHO [World Health Organization] experts to provide you with a list of required medications.

If we double the number of people sick with the swine flu (since no more than half the people with the flu go to a doctor) and compare it with other death rates, we will see that the death rate is even lower than with the regular flu. Pneumonia is the most common cause of death in every country at any time. Pneumonia often accompanies many other diseases and traumas. If each case of pneumonia was reported by the media, nothing good will happen.

We are unlucky to have these together: the [economic] crisis, the elections, the fall season and the flu. But we know for sure that sniffing, coughing and a high body temperature is influenza [the flu], a common disease that is relatively easy to treat. It requires self control and certain actions, which everybody can afford