Two suspected cases of Rift Valley Fever (RVF) were reported on Monday in Najran. This comes in the wake of a Saudi national, Saleh Bin Hussein Aal Mialaq, contracting the disease last week. An informed source at King Khaled Hospital in Najran, where the Saudi man was treated and discharged, said two Indian nationals are suspected of contracting the viral disease. He said the two Indians are being kept at the hospital until the authorities receive their final test results from the Central Laboratory in Riyadh. The source said the two Indians are Yahuta, 40, who works as a farmer in Al-Faisalia District in Jizan and the second Gona, 31, who is also working as a farmer in Al-Athaibah District in Najran. He said the two Indian workers have developed symptoms of RVF including high temperature, nausea and continuous vomiting. Okaz contacted Dr. Yahya Bin Muhammad Aal Shuwayyil, Director General of the Directorate of Health Affairs in Najran, about the two cases but he denied the news. He said there was only one case, of the Saudi man, at the hospital. He would not comment further and referred all enquiries to the Preventive Medicine Administration in Riyadh. Meanwhile, Engineer Fahd Bin Sa'eed Al-Futaish, Director General of Agricultural Affairs in Najran, said samples have been taken from animals suspected of carrying the virus, but there have been no reports yet from the Regional Laboratory in Jizan. The sponsor of one of the two Indians claimed that the Health Affairs department in Najran had informed him that his Indian worker was either affected by RVF or Al-Khumrah virus. He said the Najran Health Affairs department has not yet identified the disease and wants a medical team to inspect his farm. Aal Mialaq, the Saudi who contracted RVF, said he has made up his mind to sue the Najran Health Directorate because it had allegedly not treated him properly using precautionary procedures issued by the Ministry of Health. He also accused the Najran Health Directorate of not telling him he had contracted RVF. “Only one team visited me for a few minutes and asked me about my disease and planted mosquito traps in my house. Then they left promising that they would come to spray my house and the neighboring area, but nothing has happened.” Aal Shuwayyil said that a Health Affairs team from the hospital had gone out to Aal Mialaq's house. “A preventive medicine team, consisting of Hussein Fehaid Al-Suqoor, Dr. Mahmood Al-Obeid, Dr. Fateh Al-Rahman Al-Naji and Dr. Mahdi Mustafa, along with an insect technician was sent to his house and carried out the necessary procedures.” According to the World Health Organization (WHO), RVF is a virus that can be spread to humans by animals, including livestock, mosquitoes and blood-feeding flies. The vast majority of human infections occur through direct or indirect contact with the organs or blood of infected animals. Infection can cause severe disease in both animals and humans, leading to high rates of disease and death. The disease also results in significant economic losses due to death and abortion among RVF-infected livestock, according to the WHO.
