Eighty-six people have died in Ukraine from flu and respiratory infections, the health ministry said Wednesday, in an epidemic the World Health Organisation said could be largely due to the A(H1N1) virus.

The ministry said that almost half a million cases of flu and acute respiratory infections had been recorded since mid-October in the country of 46 million, while 24,000 people have been hospitalised.

Some 148,000 cases have been recorded in the past 24 hours, it added.

The epidemic is concentrated in the west of the country which has borders with four European Union states but a growing number of cases are being reported in the capital Kiev.

- As the pandemic virus has rapidly become the dominant influenza strain worldwide, it can be assumed that most cases of influenza in Ukraine are caused by the H1N1 virus - the WHO said on Tuesday.

Lyudmila Mukharska, Ukraine's deputy chief health officer, said the authorities had confirmed that five of the dead had died of the H1N1 virus.

She vehemently denied rumours that the west of the country was suffering from an outbreak of plague, saying that it was - H1N1 that is circulating in Ukraine.-

The WHO has sent a team of nine experts to Ukraine to help the authorities with the situation.

While the country is suffering from an above-average infection rate, many independent observers have accused Ukraine's squabbling politicians of seeking to profit from the situation ahead of January 17 presidential elections.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has personally overseen a delivery of anti-flu medicines in the middle of the night while pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko even called on NATO for help.

- Many questions remain to be answered - said the WHO.

- The outbreak in Ukraine may be indicative of how the virus can behave in the northern hemisphere during the winter season, particularly in health care settings typically found in Eastern Europe. -