Prepared All anti-swine flu measures in Saudi

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JEDDAH – Pilgrims arriving here for Haj are being greeted with face masks, hand sanitizer and fever checks as health officials strive to stem the spread of swine flu during the congregation of about three million people.

The Ministry of Health, aided by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is setting up an emergency operations center to get real-time reports from area hospitals and clinics to track how many are sick and will need the free anti-viral medication.

“It’s an advance warning system,” said the CDC’s Dr. Shahul Ebrahim, who with Dr. Ziad Memish, the Saudi assistant deputy minister for preventive medicine, outlined the planning and concerns Thursday in the journal Science.

Saudi health officials during the summer urged that children, pregnant women, the elderly and those with chronic diseases postpone this year’s pilgrimage plans, but they won’t be banned.

“The Haj is a central ritual of Islam, and our country tries to make it easy for everyone to come,” said Dr. Memish.

“We’ve said we won’t turn away anyone who arrives at our borders. But we are recommending to other countries whom they should let come.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American government’s lead disease-fighting agency, is more deeply involved because it has so much experience with this new flu strain. Consultants for the centers have gone back and forth to Riyadh, flu experts at American medical schools have been called in and the United States Navy’s medical laboratory in Cairo is preparing to help with any complex flu testing.

The Saudi government has made many preparations, like buying stockpiles of generic Tamiflu from Cipla, an Indian company. The country has 76 health facilities staffed for the Haj, and intensive-care units have been expanded.

For pilgrims, all medical care for problems they develop during their visit is free.

“We need to be prepared,” Memish was quoted as saying in a telephone interview by a news agency.
 
Among the preparations made by the Saudi authorities are:- Rapid reporting of illnesses from a network of hospitals and clinics back to the emergency operations center, where Saudi officials will work closely with US flu specialists to rapidly diagnose cases and track whether the seriously ill are straining health systems.- Saudi aid groups will donate personal hygiene kits to arriving pilgrims that contain face masks and hand sanitizer. But the report urged those protections during the trip, too. 

Thermal screening equipment to detect passengers with fevers are in place in Saudi airports, which are being advised to set aside isolation rooms to hold 200 to 300 pilgrims.- Encouraging that pilgrims get vaccinated at least two weeks before departure if they live in a country that has some of the scarce vaccine supplies. China this week announced that its more than 12,000 planned Haj travelers will be inoculated.

© The Saudi Gazette 2009