Flu bug bites travel overseas

Jenetta Drevenchuk can't remember anything from her parents' native Ukraine, not even the grandmother and aunts she visited when she was 3.

She was prepared to fly to the eastern European country this week, but she hit a bug -- the flu bug, specifically.

The 18-year-old and her parents had to cancel their trip because of a flu outbreak that temporarily brought travel to Ukraine to a standstill.

The death toll from what's suspected to be the H1N1 virus rose to 213 in Ukraine, the Russian Information Agency Novosti reported last week. Ukraine's flu epidemic began at the end of October and nearly 1.2 million have fallen ill, the agency reported.

Russia and Slovakia tightened their borders with Ukraine at the beginning of November and schools and universities across the country closed, The Associated Press reported. Officials also urged people in western Ukraine to travel only when necessary and to stay away from public places.

Miss Drevenchuk said they received a call from her Ukrainian aunt, who said a lot of people were getting sick in their village in the Vinnitsa region, about 160 miles west from the capital of Kiev.

"She said everyone was getting the flu, including her, and she didn't recommend we go," Miss Drevenchuk said.

The H1N1 virus has been confirmed in many parts of the world, and now the focus is minimizing the impact "through the rapid identification of cases and providing patients with appropriate medical care, rather than on stopping its spread internationally," according to the World Health Organization Web site.

And while there aren't any travel restrictions, having flulike symptoms while abroad can be a nightmare.

This summer, Chattanooga native Elizabeth Grubbs was quarantined in Turkey because of a suspicion that she had the H1N1 virus.

She was in Izmir, Turkey, on an eight-week scholarship trip to learn the language. She began to feel ill after sharing a chocolate bar with another American student who tested positive of the flu, she wrote in a first-person account published in Turkey. After not feeling any better, she and her roommate went to the hospital to get tested.

What should have been a fairly routine visit, she wrote, turned into a four-day hospital stay to confirm she didn't have the swine flu.

"Because of the language barrier, we had no idea what to expect," she said. "It's not an experience I would recommend."

In her article, she describes not being able to communicate with the health practitioners and not knowing what they were doing to her.

At one point, three security officers asked her and her roommate to follow them, she wrote.

"I was terrified and not about to accompany three strange men out into the night in a foreign country with no explanation," she wrote. "In booties and a mask, I stopped dead in my tracks, refused to walk and said everything I could think of in my limited Turkish to insist on an explanation. The men pointed to a nearby building and spoke in rapid Turkish. I caught the word 'enfeksiyon,'" she wrote.

The word means infection.

Miss Grubbs ultimately was diagnosed with a mild case of pneumonia, she wrote. She and her friend were allowed to leave the hospital and resume their studies in Izmir.

FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNT

Read Chattanoogan Elizabeth Grubbs' full account of being quarantined in Turkey at http://tiny.cc/Bx2OQ.

TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS

* The World Health Organization is not recommending travel restrictions related to the outbreak of the H1N1 virus.

* Limiting travel and imposing travel restrictions would have very little effect on stopping the virus from spreading, but would be highly disruptive to the global community.

* Travelers can protect themselves and others by following simple recommendations aimed at preventing the spread of infection.

* Individuals who are ill should delay travel plans, and returning travelers who fall ill should seek appropriate medical care.

Source: World Health Organization