A woman who traveled to the United States and Canada is the first verified case of the H1N1 flu in Latvia, the Public Health Agency in Rīga has announced.

The woman returned to Latvia on June 21 on a Berlin to Rīga flight on airBaltic, the agency said in a June 23 press release. The woman exhibited symptoms on the flight and was hospitalized as soon as the flight landed.

The agency has recommended that passengers who were on the flight monitor their health during the next five days. Symptoms of H1N1, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), are flu-like and include fever, cough, headache, muscle and joint pain, sore throat and runny nose. If such symptoms are observed, a spokesperson for the Latvian agency said, the person should contact their family physician or the Public Health Agency’s epidemiologist at +371 67271738.

Health officials were prepared for this first case in Latvia, the agency said in the press release. The agency has notified German officials of the case so they can organize assistance for passengers who traveled with the woman from Canada to Germany.

WHO on June 11 labeled the spread of the virus as a pandemic.

“Globally, we have good reason to believe that this pandemic, at least in its early days, will be of moderate severity,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chen said in a statement. “As we know from experience, severity can vary, depending on many factors, from one country to another. On present evidence, the overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms and make a rapid and full recovery, often in the absence of any form of medical treatment.”

According to WHO, a total of 52,160 cases of H1N1 have been reported around the word as of June 22. In all, 231 people have died as a result of the virus. No cases of the virus have been reported in Lithuania, but Estonia has had five. The United States, Mexico and Canada remain the top three countries in the number of infections.

Several years ago Ilga Reizniece of the folk-rock group Iļģi began a campaign to popularize traditional Latvian methods of celebrating the summer solstice. The campaign, called “Piedzīvosim Jāņus”, consisted of various folklore groups and folklore-minded individuals leading short seminars that were open to the public.

These took place throughout the month of June at various locations throughout Latvia. Each seminar was a bit different, since each group or individual focused on those songs and traditions and aspects of the celebration that were important to them.

The seminars were fairly popular, and I’m happy that they still continue today, although this year’s financial crisis has toned down the advertising effort and publication of song booklets.

I have taken part in a few “Piedzīvosim Jāņus” seminars, both as a spectator and as part of a group leading a seminar. This June, however, I helped organize an informal seminar at a friend’s house near Burtnieki in northern Latvia. In other words, this gathering was not on the published list of “Piedzīvosim Jāņus” seminars. But it must be one of the things that Reizniece had hoped would eventually happen: friends getting together on their own, learning songs, trying out dances, thinking about and preparing to include some “folkloric” elements in their own summer solstice celebrations. 

I’ll admit that our gathering began a bit stiffly, everyone (mostly women, since most of their husbands “weren’t interested in that sort of thing”) sitting in a circle and singing songs from photocopied booklets. But the pace picked up when we refreshed a few of the typical solstice dance-games.

Later in the evening we made caraway cheese—Jāņu siers—outside over a small fire and discussed the different ways of “tying” the cheese. Later still we rested in the sauna, and then the last couple of night-owls finished off the evening by singing ballads (sans photocopied booklets) around the bonfire. OK, not the sort of thing that excites machos… but you’ve got to start somewhere.

What we pretty much ended up doing was holding a rehearsal about two and a half weeks before the popular celebration. Not a very spontaneous, organic thing to do (did our great-grandmothers ever hold rehearsals for Jāņi?), but probably necessary in our times. Next year’s celebration will already feel a bit more natural to this group of friends.

Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis has apologized to the Latvian people for the serious tests they will have to endure as the country struggles to emerge from its economic crisis and avoid bankruptcy.

At the same time, the prime minister said in a statement released June 18, conflict will not solve the problem. The announcement came as several hundred people gathered in the Esplanade in downtown Rīga for a demonstration organized by the Free Trade Union Confederation of Latvia (Latvijas Brīvo arodbiedrības savienība, or LBAS) to protest the effects on workers of deep cuts to the national budget.

“Even though during the so-called ‘fat years’ I have not worked in the government coalition,” Dombrovskis said in his statement, “at this moment I wish to apologize to the people of Latvia for the situation and for the tests that we all will have to endure.

“I recognize that I cannot promise well-being tomorrow at lunchtime,” he continued, “but I know I am doing all that is possible to stop Latvia’s heavy fall.”

The Saeima on June 16 approved LVL 500 million in cuts to this year’s budget, which government leaders hope will clear the way for a package of international loans to be released to the country. Without the money, Dombrovskis said in his statement, the government by August will not be able to make salary, pension and other payments.

The sweeping cuts to the national budget have claimed their first political casualty. Health Minister Ivars Eglītis stepped down June 17 to protest what a 10 percent decrease in his ministry’s budget will mean to health care in Latvia.

“This is a decisive time for our nation, and we do not have many options,” the prime minister said in his statement. “Latvia faces bankruptcy, from which we can save ourselves only by sharply reducing state expenditures and hoping for the international loan.”

The other option would be to slash the budget even further, thereby putting even more pressure on society, Dombrovskis said.

Latvia’s national budget now foresees spending LVL 4.6 billion this year. The budget will have to be cut by another LVL 500 million in 2010 and again in 2011, officials have said.

The trade unions understand the need for cuts to state spending, LBAS Chairman Pēteris Krīgers said in a press release announcing the June 18 demonstration.

“But we know that there are different ways to save, with an eye toward development or without it,” Krīgers said. “Even while saving it is possible to make new jobs and create new opportunities. Latvians have always survived thanks to their capacity to work. That is why we should be given the opportunity to work!”

In a speech before the Saeima, President Valdis Zatlers admitted the country’s leaders have not been prepared to deal with the crisis.

“In my opinion,” the president said, according to a transcript of his speech, “we must all not only acknowledge, but also accept responsibility for the fact that our decisions often have been incorrect, actions have been incorrect, we have lacked political will, lacked economic and management far-sightedness, we have badly run our country.”

He urged members of parliament to work even through the summer to address the next phase of budget cuts and to involve the public in the decision-making process.