Global Arab Network | More swine flu cases in the Middle East

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More swine flu cases in the Middle East

Global Arab Network - - Maha Karim

Sunday, 23 August 2009 16:05

An additional 14 swine flu cases have been reported in the West Bank last week, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Sunday.
Asaad Al-Ramlawy, director of the ministry's healthcare, said the tally of swine flu patients now stand at 121, mostly from Ramallah, in the central parts of the West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israeli medical sources announced the death of a young Israeli woman due to swine flu, or A-H1N1, taking up fatalities toll to 12.

The 27-year-old woman had arrived at the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in the city of Rishon LeZion in central Israel just before she got infected by the virus; Israeli Haaretz Newspaper quoted the sources as saying.

More than 2,500 Israelis were infected by the virus since it spread through different parts of the world, in which many of the cases had recovered.

In Kuwait, a female inmate has been taken to hospital for medical tests on suspicion of infection with swine flu, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.

The woman was held at Farwaniya police station in connection with a criminal case, spokesman for the ministry Colonel Mohamed al-Saber said in a news release.

Another nine inmates who had close contacts with the suspected case have also been taken to hospital for H1N1 tests, he added.

Samples were taken from them and then taken back to the police station where they were solely kept as a precautionary measure, he said.

In Syria, Ministry of Health reported last week four new cases of swine flu where the number of the detected cases amounted to 21 cases 17 of which completely recovered while the situation of four of them is good and stable.

In a statement to Syrian News Press, Minster of Health Rida Said said that the cases were detected in two citizens who returned from Spain few days ago while the other cases were detected in two Palestinian citizens living in Syria who came in contact with one of their relatives who came from Lebanon, pointing out that all the medical services were provided for the infected people and their infection is not severe and their situation is stable.

He added that the medical bodies at the Ministry of Health monitor the disease and do analysis for the citizens who came in contact with infected people to make sure that they are not infected.

Ministry of Health in cooperation with Ministry of Education will hold a scientific symposium tomorrow with the aim of putting a plan for spreading awareness and finding means of protecting school students against swine flue .

The symposium aims at defining the role of the school ,society and the family in undertaking the required measures for prevention of this disease.

Meanwhile, Tunisia set up a monitoring committee to follow up on the evolution of the pandemic. It is also one of the first countries in the region to have ordered large stocks of vaccine.

According to the business website, “webmanagercenter”, Tunisia’s Central Pharmacy has recently ordered a stock of some 500,000 supplies of the vaccine from two major international laboratories and hopes to take hold of the vaccine end of October.

Tunisia has also given priority to people who are more likely to be exposed to the virus such as pregnant women and people affected with chronic diseases.

Recent data released by the World Health Organisation (WHO), show that to date the virus has killed 1799 people throughout the world, with some 1579 deaths on the American continent alone.

Global Arab Network

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