No swine flu case was documented in Morocco since the outbreak of the disease in Mexico over a week ago, the Moroccan health ministry said on Thursday.

To protect the North African country from any possible infections, the health ministry has taken a series of measures that include the reactivation the riposte program, set up in 2005 to fight the fatal bird flu, the ministry said in a statement.

The country also reinforced sanitary checks at all entry points, including airports, ports and land borders, by the activation of the fever detectors, and toughened the epidemiological, clinical and biological surveillance, it added.

Earlier this week, local news agency MAP reported that none of the Moroccans living in Mexico were infected by the virus.

The Moroccan consulate in Mexico has contacted a number of Moroccans living in the country and made sure that none of them was infected, it said.

As the swine flu situation is continuing to worsen, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday raised the pandemic alert level to Phase 5, indicating that a pandemic is imminent.

"Influenza pandemics must be dealt with seriously and precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world," said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan at a teleconference for the media.

It has been the second raise of the WHO's pandemic alert system in three days, indicating the quick worsening of global swine flu situation.

(Xinhua News Agency May 1, 2009)