The World Health Organization has lauded the experience of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the field of preventing and protecting the society against the spread of the new corona virus, citing Saudi Arabia's contribution to the expansion of the range of scientific knowledge and enhancing the public health awareness on the potential source of this disease as well as the endangering factors associated with it. This came in the speech of Dr. Alaaddin Alwan, Director General of WHO Middle Eastern regional bureau during a consultative meeting on public health research plan on the crown virus causing the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome which was kicked off in Riyadh yesterday and will last for two days. Despite evidence that camels in the Middle East have contracted this disease at a wide range, we are not fully confident of the sole source of the epidemic since animal folds which are widely considered a source of passing the viruses to humans are not confirmed to be a source of the illness, noting that more than three quarters of the human cases confirmed to have contracted the corona virus and reported to the WHO have not experienced a history of directly contacting with camels or any other animal, he said. He added that the meeting will make a final draft of a plan to implement a timetabled scientific research and a number of details to collect information, and analyze and interpret them to derive results in a unified way for all countries, noting the importance of the research to give a number of recommendations that would lead to wipe out the virus. For his part, Dr. Ziad bin Ahmed Memish, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health for Public Health, said the meeting discussed a number of issues relating to patterns of corona virus infection among people to determine the disease's pandemicability and how to develop the means of controlling it, pointing to the pioneering role of Saudi Arabia in conducting researches and studies and illuminating the public worldwide on the latest developments of the disease. He noted that some countries have shown readiness to cooperate with Saudi Arabia through continuous studies and research on the illness to curb the spread of the illness, noting that the total proven cases so far have reached 184, including 80 fatalities. He said Egypt has witnessed only one positive case and that studies are underway in some African countries who are popular of camel herding like Nigeria, Somalia and Mauritania. He said the corona situation is currently stable and not worrying and that following of preventive procedures and tightening the immunity are the most important steps to be taken in this regard, noting that the Ministry is continuing its measures despite the relative stability of the situation to pursue the roots of the disease for the safety of people in all parts of the Kingdom and that work is continuing to collect more information about it at the scientific levels inside the Kingdom and worldwide.
