Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr Mudhi Al-Humoud and her health counterpart Dr Hilal Al-Sayer are expected to meet Sunday to discuss the latest developments regarding swine flu, including the guidelines issued by World Health Organization (WHO) about closing schools before one percent of the population is infected with swine flu, reports Al-Qabas daily quoting sources.
Sources said recent reports from WHO about closure of schools do not include Kuwait because the precautionary measures taken here are satisfactory while the number of infected persons has declined remarkably. Sources stated the authorities noticed an almost zero percentage of infection at the beginning of classes in foreign schools. The sources added the new academic year in government schools will start on the dates announced earlier. Classes for the secondary stage have been scheduled to start on Sept 27, Oct 4 for the intermediate stage as well as the fourth and fifth grades in the primary stage, and Oct 18 for the first, second and third grades in the primary stage. Sources added neighboring countries like Saudi Arabia started classes as scheduled.
On the other hand, owners of Hajj caravans have observed a significant decrease in the number of pilgrims this year and they expect the cancellation of a large number of caravans.
Furthermore, Spokesperson of Health Ministry Dr Qais Al-Duwairi said a delegation from the health and education ministries will take part in the regional conference of WHO in Cairo, Egypt next Tuesday, emphasizing that Kuwait will be committed to any recommendations issued during the conference.
The Director of Public Health at the Ministry of Health Dr Rashed Al-Owaesh disclosed the ministry has concluded a precautionary strategy against the spread of swine flu in schools, reports Al-Shahid daily.
Dr Rashed explained the school authorities will close any class in which three cases are discovered. He said parents of students suffering from high temperature should take their wards to the nearest clinic or health center for prompt examination, while such students stay out of school for the day.
He added the ministry has approved seven-day leave with pay for women, whose children below 12 years have contracted swine flu.
These are part of measures to ensure the safety of students and the entire school environment, the senior health official assured.
Pilgrimage
The Deputy Premier for Legal Affairs, Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Justice Rashed AbdulMohsen Al-Hammad announced a committee formed jointly by the Ministries of Awqaf and Health will meet after the Eid holidays to study the new provisions recently issued by the Saudi Arabian Hajj Ministry which bans certain groups of people from performing their pilgrimage due to the swine flu pandemic, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.
In a press statement made after gracing the graduation ceremony organized by the Quran Manaber committee on Friday at Badriya Mosque in Al-Salam Zone, Al-Hammad said the fatwa issued by the Iftah sector at the Awqaf Ministry bans sick people, pregnant women, the elderly and children from performing their pilgrimage.
He added this decision will be made compulsory after HH the Amir gives his approval. In addition, pilgrimage caravans will be obligated to follow this decision. The Ministry, however, will not be able to apply the rule to those embarking on the pilgrimage using their personal vehicles.
On the other hand, Al-Hammad said Kuwait has always been actively involved in promoting the study of the Holy Quran under the encouragement of HH the Amir. A nation-wide contest has therefore been launched inviting people who can memorize the Holy Quran under the supervision of the Secretary General of the Ministry of Awqaf.
Ward
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health has signed an agreement to open a special ward on Sunday in Sabah hospital to treat swine flu cases, after the management of the Sabah Health Sector allocated and prepared the ward in the Main Theatre Building, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.
The Director of the Sabah Health Sector Dr. Adel Al-Khatrash disclosed that this step is a part of the government’s resolve to combat the swine flu disease from all angles. He noted that the sector, being the largest of the health sectors, is the first to create such a ward comprising 10 isolated rooms for family care in addition to an examination room.
He said the management has equipped all the rooms with the necessary medical materials. “We are also determined to provide a casualty clinic in the new ward for victims and suspects”, the medical expert informed.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health has rejected the demand of the Ministry of Education to provide the latest medical equipment at clinics in schools, under the joint effort by both Ministries to combat the swine flu phenomenon.
The rejection comes due to the belief of the Ministry of Health that the equipment is too costly and requires a lot of experts to operate it. This is apart from the fear that the apparatus could aid the transmission of the virus. “The clinics are only meant for first aid activities, which only need to serve as centers for testing suspicious cases prior to referral to hospitals and health centers for adequate treatment”, sources claimed.
Cases
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday that the number of cases of the pandemic flu has pass the figure of 277,607 with at least 3,205 deaths.
WHO said in its update that in the temperate region of the southern hemisphere (represented by countries such as Chile, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa), influenza activity continues to decrease or return to baseline.
Active transmission persists in tropical regions of the Americas and Asia. Many countries in Central America and the Caribbean continue to report declining activity for the second week in a row.
However, countries in the tropical region of South America (represented by countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela) are reporting increasing levels of respiratory disease.
In the tropical regions of Asia, respiratory disease activity remains geographically regional or widespread but the trend is generally increasing as noted in India, Bangladesh, and Cambodia.
While in the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere activity is variable. In the United States, regional increases in influenza activity are being reported, most notably in the south eastern states. Most of Europe is reporting low or moderate respiratory diseases activity, but parts of Eastern Europe are beginning to report increases in activity.
Computer
Cyber criminals are taking advantage of swine flu fears with e-mails promising news on the illness which then infect computers with a virus, a Spanish computer security firm warned Friday.
The e-mails invite recipients to open a document with information claiming the H1N1 flu virus was developed by pharmaceutical firms seeking to make huge profits from the outbreak, Pandasecurity said in a statement.
But if the document is opened, a virus is installed on the person’s computer which can steal personal information like bank account data.
The amount of e-mails containing the virus circulating around the Internet exploded on Friday, the statement said.
Asked in a interview published in Spain last week about conspiracy theories that major pharmaceutical firms are behind the swine flu outbreak, the head of the World Health Organisation, Margaret Chan, said she “could not imagine” that they would be capable of generating a pandemic.
“How can anyone believe that laboratories could create a disease. There have been many (pandemics) over time. They happen, that is it,” she told XLSemanal, the weekend magazine supplement of daily ABC.
US
US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack stood up Friday for pigs and hog farmers, saying their name has been dragged through the mud by people who insist on calling the A(H1N1) influenza pandemic “swine flu.”
“Each time the media uses the phrase ‘swine flu,’ a hog farmer, their workers and their families suffer,” Vilsack said in a statement.
“It is simply not fair or correct to associate the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza with hogs, an animal that does not play a role in the ongoing transmission of the pandemic strain,” he said.
When the new strain of flu was first reported in North America in April, even the global health authorities referred to the illness as swine flu.
But after the name led to several countries banning imports of pork or live swine from the United States, Canada and Mexico, where the outbreak was worst early on, the World Health Organization reexamined the nomenclature and began calling the virus influenza A(H1N1).
But the old, unflattering name has stuck and is hurting pig farmers.
According to Dave Warner, a spokesman for the US National Pork Producers Council, the US pork industry was “heading in the right direction” when the World Health Organization reported an outbreak of a new strain of flu in Mexico in late April.
The industry had weathered a tough 2007, when high grain and transportation prices meant farmers were losing 40 dollars per pig.
“But on April 24, hog futures prices were looking good. It looked like we would be seeing profits by about now,” Warner told AFP.
“Farmers could see light at the end of the tunnel. We were headed in the right direction and about to enter the summer grilling season where pork sales traditionally go up. But H1N1 essentially wiped out all of that,” he said.
Jordan
Number of Jordanian students who contracted A (H1N1), or swine flu, in schools across the kingdom rose to 37, 20 of them males and 17 females,  Jordan Ministry of Education said Saturday.
The ministry’s Secretary General Fawaz Jaradat told Jordanian News Agency (Petra) that 20 of the students had left hospitals after recovery, while the rest remained on medication and their condition was stable.
Jaradat said those infected had contracted the flu at 25 private and 12 public schools, adding that 18 of the students were under the age of 10.
He said going to school was better than staying at home due to an awareness campaign launched by the ministry on means of infection and protection through counseling and guidance, as well as publications and lectures.
This week’s swine flu tally in the kingdom reached 185 since the first case was confirmed last June.

Arabtimes