H1N1 takes toll on pilgrimage

The Record (Hackensack, N.J.)

HACKENSACK, N.J. — The spread of the H1N1 flu, in addition to worries about the struggling economy, is expected to keep many Muslims from participating this month in the holy pilgrimage to Mecca known as the Hajj, say community leaders and Saudi officials.

The Saudi Ministry of Health is urging senior citizens, children 12 and younger, pregnant women and people with serious health conditions to forgo the Hajj because of H1N1, the predominant flu virus in most countries. In addition, some nations, such as Tunisia, are banning their citizens from attending the Hajj — where millions of people stand in close proximity — because of fears that people will return infected.

Saudi health officials on Saturday announced four pilgrims had died from swine flu.

Last year, travel agents who arrange Hajj travel saw a drop in the number of people going and attributed it to the ailing economy. Now, travel agents say they have booked even fewer trips than last year.

“I’ve booked about 450,” said Willie Ammar, manager of Apollo Travel in Paterson, N.J. That number, he said, is down from the roughly 600 trips he arranged around the same time last year.

“A lot of people are scared of the flu,” Ammar said. “At the Hajj you have 1 million or 2 million people in one spot. Hopefully, things will be OK.

“We were hoping to recover from last year’s drop in travel [to the Hajj],” he said, noting that before last year, he’d book more than 800 flights each year to the Hajj. “Then we got this.”

Saudi officials say that normally 1.7 million pilgrims arrive for the Hajj from overseas each year.

The most critical days of the Hajj this year are from Wednesday to Sunday. But many people arrive well before, often about two weeks in advance, Muslim leaders say.

Saudi officials were instructing people planning to attend the Hajj to receive shots for the H1N1 flu as well as the regular flu. In addition, they were dispatching medical teams to different gathering spots to monitor health conditions and check anyone with flu symptoms.

Normally, some 14,000 Hajj visas are issued each year to people living in the United States, said Nail Al-Jubeir, spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington. But last year, that number dropped to about 11,800.

“There were earlier indications that [attendance] might be lower [this year],” Al-Jubeir said, adding that they have not yet counted the number of Hajj visas issued this year. “How much will have to do with the global economy, the U.S. economy or the swine flu, we don’t know.”

However, some Muslims are casting aside concerns about the flu and attending anyway.

Mufeed Lahham is one of them.

He recalled that once his doctor responded to a concern he expressed about catching a virus by asking him if he drove.

“I said yes, and he said, ‘‘If you drive a car, there’s 10 to 15 times more danger,’ ‘‘ Lahham said before he left for the Hajj. “Any action you do in your life can carry a little bit of danger.”