Saudi confirms 3rd flu case as pandemic declared

Saudi Arabia said on Thursday a toddler has tested positive for swine flu, the third such reported case in the kingdom, hours after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic.

The three-and-a-half-year-old boy, along with his family, arrived in Saudi from the United States last Sunday, the official SPA news agency quoted Saudi Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabia as saying.

The toddler was checked into the Armed Forces Hospital in Riyadh on Wednesday when he began showing symptoms of the A(H1N1) virus. Medical tests showed he had been infected with the virus, Rabia said.

"The boy is currently undergoing medical procedures that are taken in such cases," he said, pointing out that members of his family were examined and tested negative for the virus.

A Saudi student who returned from the United States to the kingdom was confirmed as the country's second case of infection by the H1N1 virus on Sunday, just few days after the Gulf kingdom reported its first case of swine flu, a Filipina nurse who tested positive several days after returning from holiday to Saudi Arabia via Bahrain.

Saudi Arabia's neighbor Kuwait said on May 24 that 18 U.S. soldiers had H1N1 flu in the first cases to hit the world's largest oil exporting region. Kuwait has a logistics base for the U.S. army for their Iraq operations.

The flu first arrived in the Middle East via Israel after a man arrived from Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak, where he had contracted the virus in April.