KIEV, Nov. 1 – Ukraine on Sunday appealed for urgent international help seeking medicines and equipment to stop the spread of a deadly virus that was identified Friday as a strain of the swine flu.

The appeal comes two days after the government had announced some of the sternest measures in the world, including shutting down schools and public gatherings for three weeks, to contain the outbreak.

The measures are aimed at stopping the spread of the virus, known as (A)H1N1, and which is believed to have killed 53 people and infected hundreds of thousands over the past three weeks.

“The existing threat to the national security of Ukraine, which we cannot neutralize only with our own efforts, demands that I appeal to our closest friends and strategic partners for urgent help,” President Viktor Yushchenko said in a letter to international leaders.

The letter was sent to the leaders of the U.S., the European Union, and the NATO alliance, as well as to Poland, Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Slovakia and Hungary.

The appeal for the international help signals the authorities have made little progress in combating the virus as death toll had continued to rise while panic had depleted stockpile of medicines.

The government, at an emergency meeting on Friday, declared the swine flu outbreak as the threat of the third level – the highest possible – to make up to 3 billion hryvnias available to fight the disease.

“We will deploy all ministries and departments,” Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said after the meeting. “If needed we will seek help from the army and emergency ministry personnel.”

In the first reaction to the appeal, the Antonov-26 cargo plane loaded with Tamiflu, the medicine seen as the most effective in treatment of the swine flu, is supposed to arrive in Kiev Sunday night, according to the presidential press service.

The plane will carry 300,000 doses of Tamiflu, which should be enough to meet Ukraine’s monthly demand, according to Iryna Vannikova, Yushchenko’s press service. The medicine is expected to reach the affected regions on Monday.

Among the anti-flu measures, the government decided to shut down schools and banned all public gatherings for the next three weeks.

The outbreak originally affected three of Ukraine’s western regions, including Lviv, Ternopil and Ivan-Frankivsk, but it had later spread to nine out of Ukraine’s 25 regions.

Tymoshenko said the government has been considering restricting movement of people between the regions without an obvious reason.

“We will be introducing special measures that anticipate banning movement of people without an immediate reason from region to region,” Tymoshenko said.

The measures will have an immediate effect on the campaign for the Ukrainian presidency with the election due on January 17, 2010.

Tymoshenko, Yushchenko and other candidates have cancelled massive campaign rallies that had been scheduled across Ukraine.

But despite the measures, the death toll from the outbreak had increased to 53 on Sunday from 30 on Thursday, according to the Healthcare Ministry. About 185,000 are sick, of which 7,400 are hospitalized with 123 people undergoing intensive care, the ministry said.

The outbreak of swine flu was first detected in Mexico in April 2009 and was declared a global pandemic on June 11, 2009, in the first designation by the World Health Organization of a worldwide pandemic in 41 years.

Margaret Chan, WHO director general, believes the pandemic is "moderate" in severity with the overwhelming majority of patients experiencing only mild symptoms and a full recovery, often in the absence of any medical treatment.

In the U.S., the swine flu has infected more than one million people, and caused more than 600 deaths and more than 6,000 hospitalizations, according to the organization. (tl/ez)