One or the other of the reporters for Arab News and Agence France Presse didn’t take good notes during a public health briefing on swine flu and Haj, apparently, as their respective stories are similar but conflict on the numbers.
Arab News reports that nine pilgrims were checked out for high fevers, but only two of them were confirmed to have swine flu. AFP, in a story run in Saudi Gazette, reports that nine were diagnosed with swine flu, but only two were hospitalized. The truth is somewhere in there…
The Saudi Gazette‘s AFP story notes that to date, 70 people have died of swine flu in the Kingdom, out of around 7,000 confirmed cases.
Haj is not scheduled to begin for another two weeks. Tens of thousands are already arriving in Saudi Arabia, however.
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November:12:2009 - 18:17
Confirmed cases. Well, since most people don’t get the full testing done- there won’t be that many. But an awful lot of people I know have “the flu”. Whichever one that is…and some are on Tamiflu, but none are “confirmed”. Same situation in many schools. Something, is certainly making the rounds.