COVID-19 and the scaled-down 2020 Hajj Pilgrimage—Decisive, logical and prudent decision making by Saudi authorities overcomes pre-Hajj public health concerns

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Alimuddin Zumla, University College London; Esam I. Azhar, King Fahd Medical Research Center; Saleh Alqahtani, King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center; Shuja Shafi, Mass Gatherings and Global Health Network; Ziad Memish, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2020-10-01
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2020 The Author(s)
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.08.006
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
• Volume: 99
• Start Page: 34
• End Page: 36
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Medicine and Surgery; Health Sciences, Immunology; Health Sciences, Public Health

Abstract

The abrupt appearance of SARS-CoV-2 as a novel lethal zoonotic pathogen causing COVID-19 disease in humans in late December 2019 (WHO, 2020), and its explosive global spread (Hui et al., 2020) caught health authorities worldwide by surprise and exposed the ill-preparedness of global public health systems to deal with the appearance of a new pathogen. Apart from generic prevention and control issues of public health and lockdown measures to limit epidemic spread, specific issues of Mass Gathering sporting and religious events came under specific spotlight (Alzahrani et al., 2020; Memish et al., 2020; Baloch et al., 2020, McCloskey et al., 2020, Petersen et al., 2020b). Mass gathering events present important health challenges related to the public health services and health of the host country population, the attendees and their home countries (Memish et al., 2014, Memish et al., 2019). The 2009 Hajj was held during the 2009 HIN1 influenza pandemic and focused attention on developing Mass Gatherings Medicine as a formal discipline, resulting in the formation of a coalition of global academic and public health faculty and virtual WHO mass gathering collaborating centres to guide development of, and update, optimal public health and medical prevention and treatment guidelines at mass gathering events (Memish et al., 2014).