18 US soldiers have been confirmed as the first cases in Kuwait with swine flu, the undersecretary of the ministry of health said on Sunday.
The soldiers were confirmed with the H1N1 flu virus upon their arrival.
State news agency KUNA cited a government official yesterday as saying the new virus had been detected in an unspecified numbers of soldiers who were going through Kuwait.
They were the first confirmed cases in the Gulf, the world's largest oil exporting region.
Kuwait is a logistics base for the US army in support of its troops in Iraq.
