The Ministry of Health (MOH) has reaffirmed the importance of respiratory disease prevention in general and advised everyone to adhere to the awareness guidelines to avoid viral infection. Washing hands with water and soap, covering your cough or sneeze with a tissue or flexed elbow and avoiding close contact with people who are sick are among the most fundamental of those preventive measures. It pointed out that these guidelines, published on the Ministry's website, can help to reduce virus transmission from one person to another.
Meanwhile, MOH has tightened surveillance and monitoring at all points of entry into the Kingdom, and readiness of its health facilities to deal with the infectious respiratory illnesses. MOH has implemented a multitude of vigorous precautionary measures to address the spread of the viruses at air, sea and land ports, by establishing monitoring centers equipped with thermometers, thermographic cameras, and other medical devices to implement the preventive measures. Also, MOH has prepared a health declaration form to be completed by the incoming passengers and forwarded to the airport authorities.
MOH has called on all passengers to declare their presence in China over the past two weeks, pointing out that the arrivals from China via direct or indirect flights will get their temperature and vision measured; and the suspected cases will be isolated. The Kingdom has 1,464 respiratory isolation rooms equipped with the necessary laboratory devices and mechanisms for collecting and sending samples to the National Health Laboratory (NHL).