Egypt warns of flu threat to Makkah pilgrims

Egyptian Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali warned in a newspaper interview yesterday of the dangers posed by swine flu to millions of Muslim pilgrims travelling to Saudi Arabia.
The minister said the government could not bar Egyptian pilgrims from travelling because the decision had to be made by Muslim clerics, but that the authorities could quarantine returning pilgrims.
Gabali told the independent daily Al-Masri Al-Yom that "there is a large possibility" the A(H1N1) virus, which has killed 80 people and infected roughly 10,000 in 39 countries, may reach Egypt with returning pilgrims.
More than two million Muslims make the pilgrimage every year.
Gabali said he could not bar Egypt's estimated 600,000 pilgrims from travelling as such a decision was up to clerics, but that he could "open quarantines and say: no one will return from Saudi Arabia to his home."
The senior Muslim cleric in the Gulf emirate of Dubai already published a fatwa, or religious decree, on May 11 calling on the faithful to delay any pilgrimages to Makkah for the time being.
The emirate's mufti, Sheikh Abdel Aziz Haddad, also urged worshippers not to pray too close together in Dubai's mosques or, better still, to pray outside them.