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Slovakia closes border crossings with Ukraine amid A/H1N1 fears

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Slovakia will close on Sunday all border crossings with Ukraine, except for the car checkpoint in Vysne Nemecke, amid fears of spreading the A/H1N1 virus, the Slovakian interior minister said on Saturday.

WARSAW, November 7 (RIA Novosti) - Slovakia will close on Sunday all border crossings with Ukraine, except for the car checkpoint in Vysne Nemecke, amid fears of spreading the A/H1N1 virus, the Slovakian interior minister said on Saturday.

As of November 6, a flu epidemic had left 135 people dead and over 871,000 infected in Ukraine, the ex-Soviet country's Health Ministry said on its website on Saturday.

However, Robert Kalinak said Bratislava was not currently considering sealing off the border with Ukraine.

"Our border guards may deny entry to the Schengen zone to foreigners with flu symptoms," Kalinak said.

Earlier in the day, the Slovakian Foreign Ministry advised nationals against travels to neighboring Ukraine over a flu epidemic.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on Saturday she saw no need for declaring a state of emergency in the country over the epidemic, while Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) chief, Raisa Bohatyryova, said on Friday there were 'constitutional prerequisites' for that.

According to Slovakia's Health Ministry, 12,000 people had contracted flu over the past week, with the number of those infected with swine flu rising to 200 people.

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