Killer Flu Bug Attacks Western Ukraine


Yuriy Dyachyshyn, AFP / Getty Images

By Nicole Straff

An outbreak of a type of viral pneumonia has plunged the Ukraine and its neighboring countries into a state of panic. A potentially lethal combination of three different viruses are reported to have mutated into a single pneumonic plague, which is believed to be far more dangerous than swine flu. The death toll has reached 189, and as many as one million people have been infected, most of them within regions of Western Ukraine.

Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko has called in the World Health Organization to investigate, and a team of medical specialists is carrying out tests in Kiev and Lviv to identify the virus. Samples have been sent to London for analysis. However, preliminary tests reveal no significant changes in the pandemic based on samples taken from patients in the last few days, according to WHO affiliates in London and the Unites States. A total of 34 samples have been analyzed independently; analyses are performed as part of a global influenza surveillance network.

One of the WHO’s Collaborating Centers is St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. There, researchers from the Virology Division in the Department of Infectious Diseases state that preliminary genetic sequencing shows that the Ukraine virus is similar to the virus used for production of the pandemic flu vaccine. At press-time, the Memphis WHO Collaborating Center said, “Additional questions about the pandemic virus circulating in Ukraine will be answered as more data is available. WHO commends the government of Ukraine for its open sharing of samples to inform global monitoring of the virus for signs of change.”

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, “The character of this threat demands that rapid action be undertaken at the European Union level.” As the Daily Express in Britain originally reported, Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Romania have launched health checks on Ukrainians entering their territory. In a televised interview, President Yushchenko said, “Unlike similar epidemics in other countries, three causes of serious viral infections came together simultaneously in Ukraine. Virologists conclude that this combination of infections may produce an even more aggressive new virus as a result of mutation.”

Presidential elections, which were to be held in January, may be cancelled.