AFP/Riyadh
Saudi Arabia said yesterday it is to vaccinate all its residents attending the Haj against swine flu, pressing ahead with plans to host millions of the world’s Muslims despite a heightened pandemic alert.
The kingdom has received the first tranche of 11mn vaccine doses it has ordered for the H1N1 flu.
Authorities were to begin vaccinating hundreds of thousands of health and other Haj workers as well as domestic pilgrims against swine flu from next week, said a senior Saudi health official.
Anyone working on the annual Haj pilgrimage to Makkah and Madinah was being strongly urged to get vaccinated, said Dr Ziad Memish, the assistant deputy health minister for preventive medicine.
“The priority is for local pilgrims,” he said, referring to the estimated 1mn plus Saudis and residents of the country who will embark on the Haj.
The vaccines will also be made available - but not mandatory - for health workers, hundreds of thousands of government and private sector workers dealing with the Haj, and residents of the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah, he said.
The Haj, which this year is from November 25 to 29, swells the region in western Saudi Arabia with about 3mn pilgrims from around 80 countries, including more than 1mn from inside the country.
Swine flu deaths have reached 62 in the kingdom, most of them involving people with other health problems, Memish said.
Confirmed cases are close to 7,000 since the first case was reported on June 3, while clinically diagnosed cases, which Memish said are more indicative of the presence of the disease, are between 22,000 and 23,000.
Despite concerns about the disease the Haj will go ahead without any forced restrictions on pilgrims, tens of thousands of whom have already arrived in the country for the event.
Memish said the low level of cases during the peak Umrah minor pilgrimage period in August and September, only 26 proven swine flu infections among millions of pilgrims, gave them confidence that the Haj will not experience a major outbreak.
“We don’t envision anything disastrous,” he said.
Dr Shahul Ebrahim, an epidemiologist with the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention who is assisting the Saudi health ministry during the Haj, said that close monitoring of pilgrims and the widespread use of face masks and hand cleaners should be able to stall the disease’s spread. |
