KIEV, November 17 (RIA Novosti) - The number of deaths in Ukraine from flu viruses has risen to 315, with 16 passing away over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry has reported.

Ukraine's flu epidemic began at the end of October and over 1.4 million have fallen ill. At least 78,000 people have been hospitalized and over 300 patients are still kept in intensive care.

The ministry said earlier that 15 regions in the ex-Soviet republic had already crossed the flu epidemic threshold, while 11 provinces were close to it. The Ukrainian government imposed quarantine in nine western provinces in late October in an attempt to curb the spread of flu.

The Ukrainian parliament has approved the allocation of 1 billion hryvnias ($125 million) for measures to fight swine and seasonal flu, while President Viktor Yushchenko has called for international assistance.

According to the Daily Mail newspaper, British scientists are examining the strain of the flu behind the deadly Ukrainian outbreak to see if the virus has mutated.

Some doctors have likened the symptoms to those seen in many of the victims of the Spanish flu which caused millions of deaths world-wide after the World War I, the paper said on Sunday.