The Ministry of Health (MOH), represented by the Awareness and Health Promotion General Department and in collaboration with Sanofi Company, has launched a health awareness campaign under the theme: “Together for a Healthy Pilgrimage". It aims at promoting awareness among pilgrims on the main health requirements during this year’s Hajj season, meanwhile focusing on a number of topics, including yellow fever, meningococcal meningitis, poliomyelitis and vaccination against seasonal flu, as well as modifying some health misconceptions among pilgrims during performing Hajj rituals.
Within the same vein, the MOH has pointed out that it printed, in ten languages, a number of 500,000 brochures of Health Hajj Map and 800 roll-ups, in addition to numerous health awareness publications for pilgrims form inside and outside the Kingdom. These publications comprised educational messages on the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus (MERS-CoV) and other messages for health staff. Furthermore, these publications included a lot of information of interest to pilgrims such as symptoms and complications of diseases, their detection mechanism, and ways of prevention against them, in addition to the guidelines that should be followed in case of incidence of diseases. Moreover, numerous health publications have been printed; with a view to shedding light on the proper health behaviors during hajj.
The activities of the campaign comprised the production of four awareness films, including health tips and guidelines on heat exhaustion, sunstrokes, food poisoning and infection control, as well as creating an awareness app. about pilgrimage. The activities also included the equipment of four vans with display screens, as well as providing 80 display screens for health centers at the Holy Sites, and implementing health education via social networks. Over and above, two million health awareness SMS will be broadcasted for pilgrims during performing Hajj rituals.