Four pilgrims in Saudi Arabia die of H1N1 virus

By David Liu

Saudi Arabia announced on Saturday that four pilgrims had died of the H1N1 flu virus three days before the massive Muslim haj Pilgrimage is due to begin at Mecca, Saudia Arabia, al-Hayat newspaper reported.

The Health Ministry was cited by the news paper as saying the H1N1 victims included a 17-year-old Nigerian female teenager, and three elderly people, a Sudanese man, an Indian man and a Moroccan woman who were all 75 years old.

"These cases were discovered too late," Dr. Khaled Al-Marghalani, the spokesman for Health Ministry was quoted as saying. "Some were old, and the others had pre-existing chronic conditions."

Muslins are required to attend the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia for at least once in their lives. This year the pilgrimage, which provides a good medium for the flu to spread, starts Wednesday and many pilgrims have been arriving from all over the world days or weeks ahead of the event.

Arab health ministers at a meeting held earlier in Cairo, Egypt was initially thinking to ban several groups of people who are at high risk of getting or spreading H1N1 flu including children under 12, adults over 65 and pregnant women and people with chronic diseases. The Saudis did not ban anyone from other countries.

H1N1 is milder than expected and many people including medical workers in the United States and Kong Kong reportedly refused to receive H1N1 vaccine.