Saudi Arabia: Hajj’s Precautions Prevail

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-hajjs-precautions-prevail.html

Version 0 of 1.

Saudi Arabia’s acting health minister said Monday that this year’s hajj had been free of Ebola and other contagious diseases because of measures taken by the kingdom to protect more than two million pilgrims who took part in the annual Islamic pilgrimage. The hajj, which lasts around five days, ended Monday. There were concerns regarding Saudi Arabia’s readiness to ensure a healthy hajj for pilgrims after the kingdom became the epicenter for the potentially fatal Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS. Several health workers and doctors died of that coronavirus in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, raising alarm about the safety of hospitals. The acting health minister, Adel Faqih, said the kingdom deployed thousands of health workers during the hajj and performed data screening on pilgrims upon arrival to the kingdom as a precaution. He said the kingdom’s ban on issuing visas to people from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, which have been hit hard by an Ebola outbreak, would remain in place for the foreseeable future.