KIEV — Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Friday banned public gatherings, including election rallies, and closed schools for three weeks after confirming the country’s first death from H1N1 flu.
Tymoshenko, who also announced travel restrictions, said the measures were needed because the virus had reached epidemic levels in three parts of western Ukraine, where there has been an outbreak of respiratory illness since mid-October.
The epidemic coincides with the start of campaigning for a presidential election on Jan. 17. Tymoshenko, herself a front-runner, said the emergency would affect campaign rallies.
“All our pre-election events have been cancelled. They will not be held until the situation has stabilized,” she said in a televised statement.
President Viktor Yushchenko, a bitter rival of Tymoshenko’s, himself called off a public meeting in Kiev where he had been due to roll out his election program.
He told journalists that 11 people had died of H1N1, also called swine flu, contradicting a Health Ministry report of only one death. An aide and a ministry official said Yushchenko may have made a mistake.
The government allotted 500 million hryvna ($63 million) for medical supplies to fight the virus.
Yushchenko said Ukraine, already suffering the effects of a severe economic downturn, would turn to international institutions and foreign partners for help if the situation developed beyond Ukraine’s capacity to handle it.
“We are considering a quarantine not only in the west but also across the country because the virus is spreading very fast,” Health Minister Vasyl Knyazevych told reporters.
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