CAIRO: As pilgrims wrap up the last rituals of the Hajj, the pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca, the death toll of Egyptians there has reached 56 as of Thursday afternoon. The majority of those who passed away were part of the lottery pilgrimage. The first flights heading back from the Saudi cities of Jeddah and Madina carrying Egyptian pilgrims started arriving on Thursday and will continue until Dec. 10 when the last of the Egyptians should arrive. Despite earlier announcements that no special health procedures will be set up at airports, recent reports suggested that a medical quarantine at the Cairo International Airport is ready to check on pilgrims upon their arrival in Egypt. This quarantine is set up every year to examine pilgrims who display unusual symptoms in fear of carrying a disease they may have caught during the Hajj, which bring together almost 3 million people from different parts of the world, according to an official at the Ministry of Health. Last year the Ministry of Health has set up a health quarantine which examined every single pilgrim upon their arrival due to the global pandemic H1N1, known as the swine flu, in an effort to prevent it from spreading.
This story has been updated with the new number of deaths.
