Following the outbreak of swine flu pandemic across the globe, Saudi Arabian authorities said Nigerian pilgrims would not be allowed into the country if they were not immunised against the disease.
But Minister of Health, Professor Babatunde Osotimehin, said the vaccine for the flu was not available anywhere in the world. He also alerted intending pilgrims to this year’s Holy Pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia of possible threat of the new subtype of the disease, A HINI, also called swine flu.
He said the Federal Government had engaged the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Abuja on the issue where it told them that non- availability of the vaccines was a global issue not peculiar to the country alone.
“Right now there is no vaccine anywhere in Africa, in Europe and America, some vaccines have been bought ahead of production”, he said, adding that apart from the World Health Organization (WHO), no African country can have access to it “at least, this year”, he said.
Osotimehin said he had appealed to the Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr. Margret Chang, whom he met at a meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, last week, to interface with the Saudi authorities on the vaccine issue.
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