As part of the events carried out by the Ministry of Health (MOH) on the occasion of the World Health Day, the National Center for Information, Media and Health Awareness, will host on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, a number of physicians and consultants; to answer all callers’ queries and provide them with medical tips and guidelines on the vector-borne diseases.
The Center will receive citizens’ calls, during the abovementioned days, via its toll free number (8002494444) and the MOH account on Twitter: @SAUDIMOH, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. It will host tomorrow (Monday), 7th April, 2014, the Assistant Deputy Minister for Public Health, Dr. Abdullah Asiri; in order to answer all queries on dengue fever, while Prof. Dr. Sami Al-Hajjar, a Consultant in Communicable Diseases, will be a guest on Tuesday, 8th April, 2014; to answer all queries relating to vector-borne diseases. Besides, the Center will host Dr. Muhammad Al-Zahrani, a Consultant in Diseases Vectors on Wednesday, 9th April, 2014; to talk about diseases vectors.
Furthermore, the Center has highlighted that a group of its female pharmacists and specialists will be assigned to receive during the official work hours, via the above-mentioned contact channels, the callers’ questions and queries about all health related topics. Moreover, a number of brochures, posters and roll-ups on the vector-borne diseases have been prepared and disseminated to the Kingdom’s health affairs general directorates for the celebration of the World Heath Day.
It is worth mentioning that The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia celebrates the World Health Day on April 7th of each year. The theme of the World Health Day 2014 is the vector-borne diseases. Each year a theme is selected for the World Health Day that highlights a priority area of public health concern in the world. The slogan of this year's campaign is "Small Bite, Big Threat".
The most common vector-borne diseases in the Kingdom are malaria, dengue fever, rift valley fever, leishmaniasis and schistosomiasis.