Amman, Jordan, August 23, 2011 – Elsevier, the world's leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announced today that the Saudi Ministry of Health has published its 2011 health conditions for travelers to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj). The publication, published in the August Issue of Journal of Infection and Public Health (JIPH), informs visitors of the full requirements for entry into Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Ministry of Health plays a critical role in the management of the annual Hajj pilgrimage which occurs over a five-day period during "Dhul-Hijjah," the final month of the Islamic calendar and is the world's largest annual mass gathering, attracting 2-3 million pilgrims every year.
Travelers are urged to read the guidelines in their entirety, the highlights of which are as follows:
"The Department of Preventive Medicine at the Ministry of Health develops and updates these guidelines every year in close coordination with the International Health Regulations Coordination Department at WHO. This is carried out after critical review of the global situation of endemic and emerging communicable diseases, to ensure the establishment of evidence based guidelines to protect and prevent disease transmission among pilgrims and the global community," stated His Excellency Dr. Abdullah Al Rabeeah, Saudi Minister of Health. "These guidelines are then disseminated through the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs to all the countries and enforced through the respective Royal Saudi Embassy in each country of origin and checked at all ports of entry into Saudi Arabia by Ministry of Health Preventive Medicine staff."
Notes to editors
The full article, Health conditions for travelers to Saudi Arabia for the pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj) 1432 (2011), is authored by Ziad A. Memish and Abdullah A. Al Rabeeah, with the Saudi Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Journal of Infection and Public Health Volume 4, Issue 3, August 2011, Pages 105-107, doi:10.1016/j.jiph.2011.07.001. The full article can be accessed free of charge on the journal's website, www.jiph.org . In addition, the report will be re-published in the World Epidemiological Record in September 2011.
About Journal of Infection and Public Health
is the official journal of the Saudi Arabian National Guard Health Affairs, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences and the Saudi Association for Public Health. The journal aims to be the foremost scientific, peer-reviewed journal encompassing infection prevention and control, microbiology, infectious diseases, public health and the application of healthcare epidemiology to the evaluation of health outcomes. The point of view of the journal is that infection and public health are closely intertwined and that advances in one area will have positive consequences on the other.
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Journal of Infection and Public Health