RIYADH: Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah will open a symposium on swine flu in Riyadh today where international experts will present scientific papers on the H1N1 virus before health officials from Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Yemen.
“The meeting is a follow-up to the Arab health ministers’ conference held here last week,” Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Khaled Mirghalani told Arab News yesterday, pointing out that the purpose of the meeting is to inform health officials about the virus and how to prevent its outbreak.
GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Al-Attiyah will address local and regional delegates who are attached to the preventive program in health ministries in the Gulf countries and Yemen.
Speakers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization will highlight the problems related to the disease and advise participants how to confront the H1N1 virus that has affected more than 23 countries worldwide.
Local delegates will include officials from 20 health regions in the Kingdom who are responsible for health education, disease control, community medicine, preventive health and primary health care.
Khaled Al-Zahrani, assistant deputy minister for preventive medicine and chairman of the supervisory committee of the symposium, said the meeting reflects the efforts of the government to prepare the nation to take preventive measures against the disease.
