CAIRO: Following a meeting by Cabinet’s supreme Hajj committee, the Ministry of Interior announced in a statement the rules and regulations pertaining to the Hajj pilgrimage this year.
Among their five decisions taken as precautionary measures against the spread of swine flu, is restricting the age of anyone traveling to Saudi Arabia for Umrah and Hajj to between 25 and 65.
The Ministry of Interior explains in the statement that the rules and regulations specifically lay stress on the decision “pertaining to prohibiting those above 25 and under 65, and those suffering from chronic illnesses specified by the Ministry of Health.
As of Nov. 6, according to the new rules, those who have won the Hajj trip in the lottery but were prohibited from travelling, their pilgrimage will be postponed to next year but restrictions put by the Ministry of Health at the time will be taken into consideration.
According to Saudi law female pilgrims must be accompanied by a mehrem, a male member of the immediate family and applies to woman pilgrims under 45 who can now replace their under 25 mehrem with someone eligible to travel.
Every year the ministry holds a nationwide lottery for the Hajj. This year they started accepting applications for the 2009 pilgrimage from May 9-27, one month before swine flu cases appeared in Egypt.
Lottery pilgrims must now specify who will accompany them, as the draw is valid for one time only. No one who went on Hajj by lottery before will be accepted, nor will those who have been to Hajj using their own private money in the past five years.
The ministry has also set a Sept. 30 deadline for submitting the required health certificates issued at hospitals specified by the Ministry of Health.
