Panic in Ukraine at mystery flu outbreak...

The World Health Organization sent a team of experts to Ukraine today to investigate an outbreak of respiratory disease that’s sickened a quarter of a million people and left pharmacies without masks or flu remedies.

A group of epidemiologists, physicians, laboratory technicians and communications advisers is scheduled to arrive tonight in Kiev, Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman in Geneva, said in a telephone interview today.

Ukraine faces an outbreak of flu-like illness that’s killed at least 67 people and infected 255,000, according to the country’s first deputy health minister Vasyl Lazoryshynets. About 22 patients tested positive for swine flu, Lazoryshynets said. It’s “difficult to tell” whether the pandemic H1N1 virus is responsible for all the cases, according to Hartl. More...

Don't miss:

1. Swine flu: a natural event or a sinister conspiracy?
2. Swine flu and 40 dead microbiologists...
3. Swine flu? Forget the vaccine; try meditation...
4. The day it rained poison on the town of Oakville in the US...