Saudi Arabia suspended temporarily Umrah visas for all countries. In addition to tourism visas for some countries. While the rest of the types of visas are open and available; Ambassador Tamim Al-Dosari, deputy minister of foreign affairs for consular affairs, said on Sunday. He made the remarks while addressing a press conference of the committee on the Coronavirus-related developments in the Kingdom.
Regarding the delegations that will participate in the G20 summit; Al-Dosari revealed that the health regulations followed by the Kingdom with regard to all passengers applies to the delegates also. "There is coordination between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Saudi Secretariat for the G20 Summit," he said. A spokesman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that work visas continued after the outbreak of Coronavirus.
Spokesman of the Ministry of Health said that the Kingdom equipped 25 hospitals to deal with any Corona related infection. "The Kingdom operated special flight services to evacuate citizens from endemic areas. It took the necessary health measures in the case of those returned to the Kingdom from these regions," he said while emphasizing that there has been no Corona cases reported so far in the Kingdom.
Deputy minister of Haj and Umrah for Umrah affairs stated that the ministry started stopping the electronic system for issuing Umrah visas and the visa processing system. "The precautionary measures were circulated to the Umrah companies and establishments operating in the Kingdom in addition to their foreign agents."
He said that there were 469,000 Umrah pilgrims to the Prophet's Mosque at the time of issuing the decision. 106,000 of which pilgrims left the Kingdom.
Meanwhile, the General Authority of Customs announced the suspension of exports through its land, sea and air customs outlets for all medical and laboratory products, supplies and equipment used to detect or prevent new Coronavirus in accordance with the list approved by the Ministry of Health. These products include protective clothing, medicines, body-wrapped medical suits, protective eyeglasses, and medical masks.
This comes in line with the recommendations of the ministerial committee to take all necessary precautions to prevent the outbreak of the epidemic.
