By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 7 January 2015:
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed that there have been no further cases of swine . . .[restrict]flu reported in over a week.
Ten cases of what is believed to have been swine flu were reported in late December, four in Tobruk and six in Tripoli, provoking the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to call on hospitals to prepare for the possibility of an outbreak of the virus. Five of the patients — all under the age of 40 — died.
Initial media reports that it was bird flu proved incorrect.
As a result of the outbreak the WHO sent an investigative team to investigate.
According to WHO in Libya Branch Director Abdelaziz Elhalafa, the Libyan Ministry of Health in cooperation with health care workers in Libya have been successful in containing the virus. Everyone, he said, was taking necessary precautionary measures.
Elhalafa added that the Libyan government had a vision for the establishment of a regional centre for communicable diseases based in Tobruk, as well as an advanced laboratory equipped with the devices necessary for the rapid detection of communicable diseases.
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