RIYADH, 20 January 2006 — The Health Ministry issued a statement yesterday saying that the Kingdom is free of the avian influenza virus following a recent outbreak of bird flu in Turkey.
Khaled Al-Marghalani, Health Ministry spokesman, said that the ministry is monitoring the virus at the global level through the international health organization. Saudi Arabia has taken precautionary measures to monitor the spread of the H5N1 virus and to report any cases discovered.
“The Kingdom banned the import of birds from all countries last year. It banned the import of birds from Turkey last September. This limits the chance of the virus getting into the Kingdom. As for migrating birds, the Ministry of Agriculture’s effort is continuing.”
The Ministry of Health had launched a major campaign before Haj to educate foreign pilgrims on the preventive measures that needed to be taken during their stay in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah.
The Kingdom had also beefed up health checks at entry points in order to prevent possible outbreak of avian flu among the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who came here.
The deadly virus cannot pass from person to person as ordinary seasonal flu does, but experts fear it could mutate and then be transmitted from person to person.
Turkey reported its 21st human case of bird flu on Tuesday; four of them have been fatal. At least 77 people have died in East and Southwest Asia since the virus re-emerged in 2003.
