The Ministry of Health announced Wednesday that it had detected the Kingdom's first case of swine flu, found in a Filipina nurse working at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh. The nurse had been on vacation in the Philippines and returned to the Kingdom on Friday on board a Gulf Air flight, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) quoted Minister of Health Dr. Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Rabeah as saying. Al-Rabeah added that the woman showed no sings of symptoms of the virus upon her arrival. “She started showing symptoms on Monday and was admitted to King Faisal Specialist Hospital where preliminary tests showed that she was swine flu positive.” According to World Health Organization protocol the test was repeated at the Ministry's Central Laboratory and results on Monday confirmed that the nurse was suffering from H1N1/A. Al-Rabeah said the ministry's Preventive Medical Agency and King Faisal Specialist Hospital had put into effect procedures defined in the Anti-SF National Plan which include the quarantining of the nurse and provision of treatment as well as the scanning of all persons with whom she has come into contact. The Ministry of Health has appealed to all passengers who flew from Bahrain to Riyadh last Friday on board Gulf Air flight 163 to contact the Preventive Medicine Agency at the Ministry of Health in Riyadh for tests to ensure they are not carrying the swine flu virus. A statement on Wednesday said that passengers should contact the Ministry of Health by telephone at 01-4875511 extensions 333, 391 and 392 between the hours of 8 A.M. to 11 P.M. The ministry is coordinating with King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh to reach passengers who may have come into contact with the Filipina nurse who was found to be infected with the virus on Wednesday. Saudi Arabia's neighbor Kuwait said on May 24 that 18 US soldiers had H1N1 flu in the first cases to hit the Gulf region. The global spread of the A(H1N1) virus, which surfaced in Mexico, has infected some 18,965 people worldwide, killing 117 people, according the World Health Organization. Most of the new cases were reported by the United States, with 1,078 new infections, bringing its total caseload to 10,053, including 17 deaths. Australia also posted a significant rise of 204 cases, bringing its total to 501. Egypt reported a case to the WHO for the first time, marking the spread of the virus to Africa for the first time.
