MILLION HIT BY 'PLAGUE WORSE THAN SWINE FLU'

Sunday November 15,2009

By Greg Miskiw

    A DEADLY plague could sweep across Europe, doctors fear, after an
    outbreak of a virus in Ukraine plunged the country and its neighbours
    into a state of panic.

    A cocktail of three flu viruses are reported to have mutated into a
    single pneumonic plague, which it is believed may be far more
    dangerous than swine flu. The death toll has reached 189 and more than
    1 million people have been infected, most of them in the nine regions
    of Western Ukraine.

    President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko has called in the World Health
    Organisation and a team of nine specialists are carrying out tests in
    Kiev and Lviv to identify the virus. Samples have been sent to London
    for analysis.


    President Yushchenko said: People are dying. The epidemic is killing
    doctors. This is absolutely inconceivable in the 21st Century.

    In a TV interview, the President added: Unlike similar epidemics in
    other countries, three causes of serious viral infections came
    together simultaneously in Ukraine two seasonal flus and the
    Californian flu

    Virologists conclude that this combination of infections may produce
    an even more aggressive new virus as a result of mutation.

    Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been touring hospitals where
    victims are being treated and presidential elections in January could
    be cancelled .

    Four men and one woman have died from the flu in Lviv, said emergency
    hospital chief doctor Myron Borysevych. Two of the dead patients were
    in the 22-35 age group, with two others over 60. He diagnosed the
    disease as viral pneumonia.

    We have sent the analyses to Kiev. We dont believe its H1N1 swine flu.
    Neither do we know what kind of pneumonia it is.

    Universities, schools and kindergartens have been closed, public
    meetings have been banned and theatres shut. Last week several border
    crossings in the country were also closed.

    Last night reports emerged of profiteering over face masks, which have
    sold out since the outbreak. There are also incidents of anti-virus
    medication being sold for exorbitant prices. A spokesman for the World
    Health Organisation said: We do not have a time scale for the results
    of the tests in London, although some preliminary results have been
    obtained. I cannot tell you what they are.

    We did not have enough of the virus samples so we will have to grow
    some more before we can come to a conclusive decision about its
    nature.

    Neighbouring Poland has called on the EU to take action, fearing the
    mystery virus may spread westwards.

    Prime Minister Donald Tusk has written to European Commission
    President Jose Manuel Barroso and the Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik
    Reinfeldt, who holds the EU presidency, saying: The character of this
    threat demands that rapid action be undertaken at the European Union
    level.

    Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Romania, countries that border
    Ukraine, have already launched health checks on Ukrainians entering
    their territory.

    Slovakia has closed two of five border crossings.

    A doctor in Western Ukraine who did not want to be named, said: We
    have carried out post mortems on two victims and found their lungs are
    as black as charcoal.

    They look like they have been burned. Its terrifying.

    Linkname: Daily Express

         URL:
           http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/140492/Million-hit-by-plagu
           e-worse-than-swine-flu-

    Linkname: The Daily Star
         URL: http://www.dailystar.co.uk/