A senior health ministry official justified Sunday's decision to ban sales of Viagra until its side effects are fully known, saying Egyptian men are not like American males. ``In issuing the ban the authorities took into consideration the fact that the nature of the Egyptian man is different from the nature of the American man,'' Mustafa al-Hadari told Al-Ahram newspaper on Wednesday.

The ministry decided to run tests on Viagra and said it will review the ban in November, although the country's top Muslim cleric gave it his stamp of approval last week. Sheikh Nasr Farid Wassel, whose rulings on Islamic precepts are considered law, told the Arabic daily Al-Hayat on Friday that ``the use of medications against sexual impotency is not illicit.''

But Islam only approves the use of potency-boosting drugs ``if it is proved it endsimpotency'' and if it ``improves the role of a man in legal procreation,'' he said.

Viagra, which supposedly stimulates an erection, has taken the United States by storm. In the three weeks since its launch, US doctors have written over 113,000 prescriptions, and the drug has even received the endorsement of former Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole.

The pill works by inhibiting an enzyme called phosphodiesterase, which allows more blood to flow into the penis.

In Egypt, 60 male volunteers have signed up with the Egyptian Association for the Fight Against Sexual Disorders to test Viagra.

The volunteers had only to meet certain qualifications: be married, free of any depression or schizophrenia and ``be in this state of suffering (impotence) for at least six months,'' Association head Kamal Zaki said.

The black market price of the blue pill has more than doubled over the past three days from 60 pounds (17.5 dollars) to 150 pounds (40 dollars) while a crackdown on illegal sales of the drugnetted 300 pills in 48 hours.

The share price of Pfizer, the US drug manufacturer, lost a few points on the Egyptian stock market on Monday after soaring earlier on rumours the authorities would authorise Viagra sales in Egypt. In Parliament, MPs were reportedly poring over a draft law specifically aimed at cracking down on illegal sales of unauthorised medicine in Egypt.

``The draft stipulates that offenders can be jailed for one year and fined 5,000 pounds,'' a parliamentary source said.

The press has been full of Viagra cartoons along with alarming accounts about the drug.

A drawing in Al-Akhbar newspaper showed a man urging the authorities to ``distribute more contraceptives'' to counter the effects of Viagra in Egypt, where a baby is born every 26 seconds.

Another drawing showed a man standing by his father's deathbed and being told that ``his last word was Viagra.''

Among the alarmist reviews of Viagra was the one published by Sobhi Ali Saeed, Dean of the faculty of pharmacy at theUniversity of Helwan, in Al-Wafd newspaper. ``Viagra sucks out the blood to the last drop from the heart and the brain and sends it to the sexual organ,'' Saeed said.``It has dangerous repercussions which can lead to death because of the strength of the sexual encounter,'' he added.