CAIRO: Egypt's Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa and Chairman of the Doctors' Syndicate Hamdy El-Sayed advised against going on Umrah trips (lesser pilgrimage to Mecca) this year, after the Ministry of Health announced that the first H1N1 casualty in Egypt is a woman who recently returned from there. Gomaa said that because the virus' threat is very strong, going on Umrah and Hajj trips increases the risks of catching it and jeopardizes one's health. "In Islam, God forbids us from subjecting ourselves to danger, Gomaa said. Gomaa added that his opinion stemmed from the professional medical opinions of both the Egyptian Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO), describing both bodies as "experts and the best-informed about the virus and its effects. Gomaa further urged people to be hygiene conscious, saying it is "an Islamic habit, that will help protect them from the virus. However, Minister of Health, Hatem El-Gabaly maintained that Egypt's first H1N1 flu death was mainly due to the patient's heart problems. The deceased had traveled to Saudi Arabia on June 6. She had arrived to Egypt on July 16, but her case was not detected by the thermal detectors at the airport because when she had first experienced flu-like symptoms in Saudi Arabia a few days before, she was taken to a hospital in Medina where she was given medication that decreased her temperature, according to El-Gabaly. By press time, the total number of cases in Egypt jumped from 130 on Monday to 145 on Tuesday. On Tuesday, health officials reported new confirmed H1N1 cases in Kuwait, Oman, Jordan and Iran. The WHO indicated that the number of H1N1 deaths exceeded 700.
