The ministry said that almost half a million cases of flu and acute respiratory infections had been recorded since mid-October in the country of 46 million, while 24,000 people have been hospitalised.

Some 148,000 cases have been recorded in the past 24 hours, it added.

The epidemic is concentrated in the west of the country which has borders with four European Union states but a growing number of cases are being reported in the capital Kiev.

"As the pandemic virus has rapidly become the dominant influenza strain worldwide, it can be assumed that most cases of influenza in Ukraine are caused by the H1N1 virus," the WHO said on Tuesday.

Lyudmila Mukharska, Ukraine's deputy chief health officer, said the authorities had confirmed that five of the dead had died of the H1N1 virus.

She vehemently denied rumours that the west of the country was suffering from an outbreak of plague, saying that it was "H1N1 that is circulating in Ukraine".

The WHO has sent a team of nine experts to Ukraine to help the authorities with the situation.

While the country is suffering from an above-average infection rate, many independent observers have accused Ukraine's squabbling politicians of seeking to profit from the situation ahead of January 17 presidential elections.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has personally overseen a delivery of anti-flu medicines in the middle of the night while pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko even called on NATO for help.

"Many questions remain to be answered," said the WHO.

"The outbreak in Ukraine may be indicative of how the virus can behave in the northern hemisphere during the winter season, particularly in health care settings typically found in Eastern Europe."

Swine flu infection and vaccine, out of sync: official
Swine flu infections in the United States will be past their peak when (A)H1N1 vaccine becomes readily available, a top health official said Wednesday.

"It is likely that the current wave of infection will peak, crest and begin to decline before there are ample supplies," Thomas Frieden, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told lawmakers at a briefing.

"Currently we are continuing to see virus activity and the number of people getting sick increase in many states, although it has already begun to decrease in other states, particularly in the southeast," Frieden said.

"Whether there will be another wave of H1N1 between now and May when the flu season ends or whether we'll get another strain of influenza, only time will tell," he told the briefing called to address a serious shortage of vaccine in the United States.

Nicole Kunka, a staff member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, said the government had fallen "miserably short" of its H1N1 vaccine production goal.

"Initial government estimates were that 160 million doses would be available by October... on October 29, 24.8 million doses were available," she said.

Kunka cited statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services which "indicate that doses sufficient to cover all priority populations will likely not be available before January 2010."

The vaccine shortfall has seen long lines forming outside health clinics, with many people in the five priority groups for inoculation being turned away or going home without getting their swine flu shot as vaccine supplies ran dry.

Children and pregnant women have been particularly hard hit by the swine flu pandemic. Other priority groups include health care workers, people with chronic health conditions such as asthma, and childcare workers who cannot themselves be vaccinated.

More than 5,700 people have died worldwide since the virus was first discovered in April, with most of the deaths -- 4,175 -- in the Americas region, the World Health Organization said Friday.

earlier related report
Older people most likely to die of swine flu: study
Tiny infants are most likely to be hospitalized with swine flu, but people over the age of 50 are most at risk of dying in hospital from the disease, US researchers said Tuesday.

"Despite having lower hospitalization rates, persons aged 50 years or older who were hospitalized with pandemic 2009 influenza (A)H1N1 infection were among those most likely to die," a study conducted by researchers at the California department of health showed.

Around 11 percent of the 1,088 cases of swine flu reported in California between April 17 and August 22 died, the study showed.

The death rate for people 50 and older was around 19 percent, compared to seven percent for children under 18, who made up around a third of swine flu cases reported in California.

Nearly 12 infants out of 100,000 had to be hospitalized for swine flu in the first four months of the outbreak in California, giving the tiny tots the highest hospitalization rate of any age group.

"The youngest age group, infants aged two months or younger, had the highest hospitalization rates but are too young to receive currently licensed influenza vaccines," the study said.

The findings support recommendations for caregivers of the very young to be given priority for swine flu vaccination, it added.

US health officials have repeatedly characterized swine flu as "a younger person's disease," and put children and young adults under the age of 25 on a list of five priority groups for vaccination against the disease.

The others are health care workers, infant caregivers, pregnant women and adults up to age 65 with certain underlying health conditions.

The California researchers said the median age for hospitalized and fatal swine flu cases was 27 years -- younger than is commonly seen with seasonal flu.

"For seasonal influenza, persons older than 64 years, younger than five years, or who have specific medical conditions have higher rates of hospitalization and death," the study said.

Even though swine flu is perceived as causing "only mild disease," the researchers also found that about a third of hospitalized cases were severely ill and required intensive care.

Twenty percent of pregnant women in the study spent time in the intensive care unit, and most hospitalized adults, and more than one-third of children, required mechanical ventilation.

The most common causes of death were viral pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome, the study said.

The United States is battling swine flu amid shortages of vaccine, which has seen states and counties cancel inoculation clinics, and of children's anti-viral medicine, which last week saw federal authorities raiding the strategic stockpile for kids' liquid Tamiflu.

Pandemic H1N1 flu has already claimed the lives of more children than seasonal flu typically does during an entire flu season, which runs from August until May.

More than 5,700 people have died worldwide since the virus was first discovered in April, with most of the deaths -- 4,175 -- in the Americas region, the World Health Organization said Friday.

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