KUWAIT CITY - EIGHTEEN US soldiers have tested positive for swine flu at an American military base in Kuwait and have left the Gulf emirate, a Kuwaiti health official said on Sunday.

'All the 18 soldiers have left Kuwait. They had normal symptoms of the disease and were given the necessary medication,' the deputy chief of Kuwait's public health department, Yussef Mendkar, told AFP.

He said the US soldiers had 'had no contact whatsoever with the local population,' and that the oil-rich state remained free of the A(H1N1) influenza.

The health ministry announced on Saturday that swine flu cases had been detected among US soldiers who were transiting through Kuwait.

Undersecretary of Health Ibrahim al-Abdulhadi told the official KUNA news agency that the soldiers were immediately isolated at the US base in Arifjan, 70 kilometres south of the capital.

About 15,000 US soldiers are stationed in the Gulf state, which is also used as a transit point for thousands of US soldiers going to and from neighbouring Iraq.

The US embassy in Kuwait said it was aware of the cases but did not clarify from where they had entered the country.

The number of confirmed swine flu infections around the world stood at 12,022 on Saturday, including 86 deaths, according to the World Health Organisation.

Arab countries in the Gulf region, which have millions of foreign workers, have so far not reported any confirmed cases of the flu.

But the United Arab Emirates, home to trade and tourism hub Dubai, has taken a passenger who flew in from Canada for medical checks after he showed suspected symptoms. The results have yet to be announced. -- AFP