The Ministry of Health (MOH) has allocated 15 centers for pilgrims’ health surveillance at the Kingdom’s land, sea and air ports. Furthermore, it implements the precautionary and preventive actions for those pilgrims coming through these ports; in an endeavor to protect the Kingdom against the importation and outbreak of communicable and quarantine diseases, Allah willing. These centers has commenced work since the beginning of the current month of Dhul-Qi‘dah, and the MOH has supported them with necessary requirements to assume the required tasks and run around the clock.
The manpower participating in this Hajj season have been trained and supplied with equipped ambulances for transferring cases and providing them with advanced healthcare services for the nearest hospital. Besides, equipped isolation rooms have been added for isolating the suspected cases before being transferred to the hospitals equipped for receiving such cases, as well as equipping these rooms with medical supplies such as vaccines and preventive medications, etc.
It is worth mentioning that these health surveillance centers ensure the implementation of all health requirements for those pilgrims coming to the Kingdom, especially from countries with high epidemiological rates of some diseases. This is to be carried out by means of conducting health inspection of the international travel documents that certifies pilgrims’ vaccination in their countries, inspecting all means of transport and verifying their compliance with health requirements, and the coordination with the relevant authorities to examine the food items which pilgrims brought with them, as well as recording numbers of pilgrims and reporting the preventive measures applicable to pilgrims in their countries and at the Kingdom’s ports. These centers also provide pilgrims with health education activities, including the distribution of educational brochures and broadcasting awareness programs in various languages on display screens at lounges.