# 8497
With the understanding that whenever any government agency issues a statement, they do so with the intent of presenting their case in the best possible light, we get a report this morning from Sabq.org on a press conference held earlier today by the Saudi MOH.
One with a slightly different tone than we’ve seen before.
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Perhaps feeling the sting of some of the recent commentary appearing in the International (see WaPo Editorial) and Arabic press (see Criticism of the Saudi Ministry of Health in its dealings with Corona virus infections for a Dr. Ian Mackay Interview in Arabic), today’s statement seems to take the situation more seriously than in the past.
A few points worth noting:
- The Saudi MOH is no longer calling the situation in Jeddah `normal’ or `stable’
- They acknowledge an increase in the number of MERS cases, and add that many are mild and/or asymptomatic
- They state that they are expanding their testing for the virus
- They are calling upon `all experts’ to lend assistance in dealing with this threat
- And lastly, the MOH continues to dangle the prospect of developing a vaccine, even though any MERS vaccine is likely years away
Of course, we get the obligatory boiler-plate assertions of their `continuing policy transparency and openness’ in dealing with this situation, and admonitions not to listen to rumors, but rather to get your information directly from official sources. A machine translated version follows:
Abdullah Al-barqawi.-Riyadh: the Saudi Health Ministry issued shortly before a press statement about the coronavirus, indicating which it observed an increase in the number of cases and the emergence of a number of cases without any symptoms.
The Ministry said in a statement that the continuation of its efforts, in order to identify the extent of coronavirus (Mers), the Ministry has expanded the work of the survey and research on the prevalence, screening large numbers of contacts where the Ministry has noted an increase in the number of cases and the emergence of a number of cases without any symptoms, thankfully.
The Ministry confirmed it is in constant contact with universities and scientific, manufacturers of vaccines for the access to the information with the rest of the world to learn the ways of HIV transmission and the possibility of treatment and access to an appropriate vaccine God's grace.
The Ministry has shown continuing policy transparency and openness will allow everyone access to any new information in this respect, at the same time calls upon everyone, not pandering rumors and information from unreliable sources and to get information about this virus from official sources.
The Ministry has invited all experts who have ideas or research projects regarding SK advance to the Scientific Committee national infectious diseases, Ministry of health, the Saudi universities to study the feasibility of such research and cooperation for their implementation.
