Egypt, the most populous Arab country, has adopted tough measures in the past week to avert A/H1N1 flu as it is the most affected country by the deadly bird flu outside Asia and listed number three in the world, after Indonesia and Vietnam, according to WHO.
The Egyptian government decided last Wednesday to slaughter all pigs in the country immediately. It is estimated that Egypt, about90 percent of whose population are Muslims, has some 350,000 pigs.
It also decided to establish an ad hoc committee to follow up the disease. The committee will supervise the production of face masks and carry out training in stock breeding, tourism and transportation sectors to intercept the virus.
Egyptian Health Minster Hatem al-Gabali announced on Thursday that the Egyptian authorities would close airports and crossings if WHO declared the pandemic alert level to Phase 6.
The Palestinian authorities said its health ministry has given urgent instructions to all health officials in the Palestinian territories to reveal and treat any case that infects with the flu.
Fathi Abu Mughli, Health Minister of the Palestinian National Authority said that "there is an ongoing cooperation with Israel to fight the new disease."
In war-torn Iraq, the health ministry has allocated some 30 million U.S. dollars to support precaution measures.
Officials from the health ministry are monitoring border points and airports to check those who enter the country, according to Health Minister Ihsan Jaafar.
He said hospitals in the country remain on stand-by to deal with any suspicious cases, calling for providing health centers with necessary laboratory materials.
Morocco, the North African monarch, has been fully mobilized to in face of the novel flu.
Moroccan Health Minister Yasmina Baddou was quoted by the official MAP news agency that "we have mobilized all our medics and health services in frontiers (airports, ports and land borders), and vigilance is maintained as long as the World Health Organization alert is maintained."
She told reporters shortly before attending a weekly cabinet meeting that Morocco's vigilance program is in conformity with the recommendations of the WHO and the international standards.
A committee of the health ministry also holds daily meetings to follow up the situation around the world, she said.
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Furthermore, health ministers of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which groups Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar, decided on Saturday to put health facilities of the region on high alert against the virus.
During their one-day emergency meeting, the ministers agreed to activate their national surveillance and early warning systems after the outbreak of the epidemic in several countries of the world.
It called for exchanging information and expertise among the health departments of GCC countries and appointing a liaison officer in each country in arranging contacts among the regional health departments and the concerned international organizations notably the WHO.
The ministers agreed to announce any suspected case of infection as soon as possible through the liaison officer and the Executive Office of the GCC Health Ministers' Council, the meeting's communique said.
They agreed to put the human and technical resources of each country at the disposal of other GCC countries as part of the collective measures to guard against the emergence of the fatal disease.
They urged to provide the central labs of GCC members with necessary equipment to prevent and diagnose the A/H1N1 virus and treat any possible cases in the future in cooperation with WHO.
It asked their national medical firms to step up efforts to develop such a vaccine in line with the accredited international standards and in cooperation with the GCC Secretariat, the communique added.
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Editor:Yang Jie
