JEDDAH, 31 December 2002 — Saudi Arabia has the lowest level of infectious diseases in the region, Al-Watan newspaper quoted a high-ranking health official in the Eastern Province as saying.
Denying the charges that have been appearing in the Western media that several contagious diseases, which were mostly brought in by East Asian workers, are spreading in the Kingdom, Khaled Al-Turki, assistant director general of primary health care in the Eastern Province said, “As part of Western media’s efforts to distort the image of Islam and Muslims they spread baseless reports such as the breakout of several epidemics in the Kingdom.
On the contrary, the Kingdom is totally free from epidemics except for some isolated commonly found diseases and that too not at alarming levels.”
Al-Turki said children’s diseases such as measles and meningitis, have registered a remarkable drop in recent years while polio has disappeared with no new polio cases reported in the past 10 years. The government has been distributing free vaccines against epidemics to all primary health centers and hospitals both in the private and public sectors so that preventive medicines reach the entire population free of cost.
Commenting on the possibility of contagious diseases spreading in the country through foreign workers, the official said only healthy workers free from infectious diseases are allowed to come and work in the Kingdom. Residence permits (iqama) are issued to them only after thorough medical checkups are conducted to ensure that they are free from diseases such as AIDS and TB.
Pilgrims are also required to produce certificates of vaccination against such diseases as meningitis. Those who do not carry such certificates are vaccinated at the country's entry points. Strict enforcement of such health regulations has minimized the possibility of infectious diseases breaking out in the holy cities over the past years. Domestic pilgrims are also required to take vaccinations before they set out for Haj.
