WHO staff review pandemic prevention steps in Ukraine

The WHO team of experts has continued its work in Ukraine over the weekend. While four members continued investigations in Lviv – one of the most affected regions in the country – two others travelled 100 km west of the capital, Kyiv, to Zhytomyr: a medium-sized city and a regional (oblast) capital. The health authorities there have invested resources in preparing for the pandemic in line with the central Government’s guidelines. The two team members went to the area, along with WHO’s representative in Ukraine, to see how a typical region prioritizes action to prevent an outbreak of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza.

A total of 1.3 million people live in the wider Zhytomyr oblast, explained the head of the oblast health administration to the WHO team. As of 7 November 2009, nearly 20 000 people had reported acute respiratory illness (ARI) in the previous 8 days. The region confirmed an ARI epidemic 2 days ago, with the numbers breaching a defined threshold (set using the weekly ARI incidence for the past 10 years).

There are 747 hospital beds earmarked for infectious patients (406 are designated for children) and a contingency plan is in place to allocate an extra 1415 beds at extremely short notice. The emergency response plan also includes the transformation of one hospital into a dedicated treatment and care unit for pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza.

Hospital beds are just one part of the arsenal. Health administrators have stockpiled medication for every hospital in the oblast, equipping each with enough medication to treat patients for at least 10 days and giving them access to extra medication if stocks run out. The hospital stores also include protective equipment, such as surgical masks for staff and patients, and much other equipment that can help combat a major outbreak.

Implementation of the emergency plan is still on hold, but hospital and health officials are confident that they have done all that they could in the planning stage, which began in April 2009 with WHO’s announcement of a possible pandemic. Web sites have been set up that provide both general and technical information that the public can easily access, alongside the latest recommendations for all the 30 000 health staff employed in the oblast. Twenty-four-hour hotlines are open for communication with the public, and extra lines and staff are ready to take calls if a major outbreak occurs.

After touring three hospitals, the WHO team leader said, “We still cannot accurately predict what kind of impact the H1N1 virus will have, but from the preparations I’ve seen today in this one part of Ukraine, it’s clearly a priority for public health.”