The Ministry of Health's (MOH) Command and Control Center (CCC) has enhanced its capability of dealing with and responding to the incidents by forming rapid response team including 120 health specialists covering all specialties from all regions of the Kingdom to deal with reports of infectious diseases particularly the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), in addition to its role in providing training and qualification for the health professionals on the ways of dealing with infectious diseases generally. These teams are also tasked with ensuring readiness of infection control departments in the medical facilities throughout the Kingdom's regions to increase its efficiency in facing any emergent infection.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister of Health for Public Health, Dr. Abdulaziz bin Abdullah bin Saeed, explained that the CCC’s rapid response teams, when it comes to the nature of their work, are classified into three levels; they move immediately upon receiving a complaint of suspected MERS-CoV case, and then, after recording the details of the complaint at CCC and the operation room of the teams, a rapid response team in the same area is sent to handle the case urgently according to its nature. Team Ais tasked with discovering Corona cases and visiting all health facilities for ensuring their readiness. In addition, it provides a brief training for the workers to fill the gaps in the infection control practices and reduce seriousness of the transmission of the infection inside the facility.
Whilst Team B is tasked with supporting the infection control team in the facility to curb spread of the disease and to make sure of the environmental cleaning measures, provided that the facility receives two suspected corona cases on weekly bases. Still, the role assigned to Team C starts when there are more than two suspected corona cases in the same facility in one month, and then team is sent to examine the facility for 5 continuous days, during which it provides intensive training for the workers in addition to sterilize and prepare the facility and conduct epidemiological surveillance to find the reasons behind the outbreak of the disease by specialists in the team.
It's to be noted that, the CCC, affiliated to the Ministry of Health, is responsible for continuous control of all infectious diseases and the early preparation for the protection against them, as well as monitoring and following up statements on the diseases, and providing response and coordination for the rapid intervention to control such diseases upon their occurrence in order to eliminate them before their outbreak.