Saudi Arabia has ordered four million doses of swine flu vaccine from multinational pharmaceutical companies in preparation for the Haj pilgrimage in the year-end, the health minister told a crowded press conference here Saturday. He was speaking a day after the number of deaths due to A-H1N1 in the Kingdom reached four. The first shipment of vaccines is expected to arrive by the end of October, Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeah said. The vaccines, currently under clinical trials, are expected to hit the world market around that time. “Four million vaccine doses were reserved and, of course, buying the vaccines is not easy as there is global competition,” the minister said. The minister, speaking a day after two more swine flu deaths were reported in the Kingdom, also said that his concern now was about the disease spreading locally in the Kingdom, and not so much from people coming from abroad. On Friday, a 32-year-old nurse who first showed symptoms of A(H1N1) three weeks ago died in the central province of Al-Qassim. In Asir on the same day, a 25-year-old man, a heavy smoker, died in a hospital after suffering from throat and chest inflammation and developing a fever. An Indonesian woman and a Saudi man, both young adults, have also died in the past week from the virus in the Kingdom. What is peculiar about the deaths is that the victims were all young adults, a group not rated as high risk in the Arab health ministers' circular agreed upon late last month. The circular recommended that certain vulnerable groups like the elderly, pregnant women and young children be banned from the Haj pilgrimage in an effort to contain the spread of swine flu. But Dr. Al-Rabeah said there would be no change in the health ministrs' advisory to foreign pilgrims coming for the Haj, despite the deaths so far of only young adults in the Kingdom. However, he added, that medical samples from the four victims have been sent to the disease control centers in the United States and Europe for further testing to determine whether the virus has mutated. CDC rethink on elderly Last Wednesday, the CDC cast doubt on its earlier classification of high-risk categories by stating that elderly people “are probably at very low risk for this new virus compared to young people.” “That is the best data that we have today,” CDC spokesperson Anne Schuchat said. However, Dr. Rabeah insisted that the deaths of the four young people in the Kingdom was not reason enough to revise the risk-factor ratings. “We still consider the elderly (65-year-old), pregnant women and 12-year old children at a higher risk of contracting the H1N1 virus,” he said. The vaccines, when obtained, would be given primarily to pilgrims residing in Saudi Arabia, people working in pilgrimage services and residents of Makkah and Madina, he said. The number of people affected by swine flu in the Kingdom has reached 595, Dr. Al-Rabeah said. In recent weeks, the health ministry has been engaged in educating health workers in the private and public sectors about the disease. But there is a need to create more public awareness about the precautionary measures, the minister said. “It (swine flu) is a challenge for everybody,” Dr. Al-Rabeah said, noting that swine flu does not spread rapidly but rather in contrasting phases – “slow, rapid and the status quo.” “We don't understand the media hype particularly after the four swine flu deaths in the Kingdom,” he said. “If you compare the swine flu situation in Saudi Arabia with other countries, the Kingdom still has a low occurrence of both cases of infection and deaths due to A
