Sierra Leone and Liberia due to Ebola
The Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Guinea suspended 7,200 Hajj visas for Muslims from three African countries, namely Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, as a result of the spread of the Ebola virus as a precautionary measure to prevent the disease from spreading among pilgrims in the coming season.
The Chargé d''Affairs of the Kingdom''s embassy in the Guinean capital Conakry, Mohamed Al Hammoud, revealed to the Saudi newspaper, "Okaz" today, that the decision to suspend visas was issued three months ago, indicating that the governments of these countries have understood the decision, despite what the government of Guinea announced two weeks before raising the level of measures and imposing A package of measures with the start of the second wave of the virus, in order to ensure that its citizens wishing to perform Hajj are free from infection with it, and pointed out that the reality of the spread of the virus necessitates the continued suspension of Hajj visas.
The former ambassador of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques to Guinea, Amjad Badawi, explained to the newspaper "Okaz" that the Kingdom stipulated to lift the suspension of visas to obtain an explicit note from the World Health Organization supporting the travel of citizens of these countries to the Hajj, and the government understood the reality of the matter, and added that the embassy strived to discuss the matter. With the government of Guinea being an Islamic country, and its pilgrims are close to 7,000 pilgrims, unlike the countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia, where the pilgrims coming from it are limited to 400 pilgrims.
On the other hand, the newspaper pointed out that the health of Jeddah stressed its air and sea ports by strengthening preventive and precautionary measures to prevent the arrival of the Ebola virus, which has spread in some African countries, including Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
An official source in Jeddah Health explained that the procedures include epidemiological surveillance and interviewing all arrivals from African countries neighboring the countries that registered the disease, to ensure that no case from outside the scope of the spread of the fierce virus is entered.
In a related context, according to the newspaper, the Assistant Director of Jeddah Health for Public Health, Dr. Khaled Obaid Bawaked, explained that the measures taken by the Kingdom are sufficient to prevent the disease from spreading, indicating that Ebola disease is dangerous in terms of the appearance of its symptoms and therefore it excludes the arrival of any case, adding that taking precautionary measures and applying health requirements It is necessary, especially as we are on the cusp of a pilgrimage season to which pilgrims from all over the world come.
He pointed out that Ebola hemorrhagic fever is caused by a virus, which is one of the most deadly known diseases, as the Ebola virus was first detected in 1976 in one of the western tropical provinces of Sudan and in a neighboring region of Zaire (now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and this disease was not recorded outside Central and Eastern African countries, and the Ebola virus is divided into five separate viral types (Bondibugyo, Cote d''Ivoire, Reston, Sudan and Zaire).
He indicated that the Ebola virus is transmitted through contact with the patient’s blood and body fluids that contain the virus, and the virus can also be transmitted by dealing with wild animals that carry the virus (chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, antelopes and fruit bats), whether they are sick or dead, while there is no treatment. An effective type of disease and treatment is generally limited to the provision of supportive care. He pointed out that severe disease cases require providing intensive supportive care for patients who often become dehydrated and need to be provided with rehydration fluids intravenously or orally using solutions containing electrolytes, as there is still no specific treatment or vaccine for Ebola hemorrhagic fever. .
He concluded by saying that, given that no effective treatment and vaccine is available to humans against the Ebola virus, raising awareness of the risk factors for infection with the virus and the preventive measures that individuals can take at the global level is the only way to reduce infections and deaths among humans.
