Cairo: Saudi Arabia’s health authorities have intensified field tours in the run-up to this week’s Hajj pilgrimage, exposing 4,322 violations, the Saudi news agency SPA has reported.
The round-the-clock tours aim to ensure medical missions’ compliance with Hajj health requirements and precautions.
The Health Ministry’s teams have deployed across the holy cities of Mecca and Medina as well as other sites where Hajj rituals will be undertaken.
The tours, numbering 3,300 so far, aim to detect and rectify any violation to protect pilgrims and head off potential infections.
More than 70 per cent of the detected violations have been rectified, according to SPA.
Saudi Arabia has said it will allow 1 million pilgrims from inside and outside the kingdom to perform Hajj, after restricting the annual ritual to some thousands of Muslims living inside the country for the last two years due to COVID-19 outbreak.
Eligible pilgrims this year must be under 65, fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and present a negative PCR test result, Saudi authorities have said.
