MECCA, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia sought to assure the public that the kingdom was safe and free of health scares as an estimated 2 million Muslims streamed into a sprawling tent city near Mecca on Thursday for the start of the annual Islamic hajj pilgrimage.
Earlier this year, Saudi authorities banned people from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea — the countries hardest hit in the Ebola epidemic — from getting visas as a precaution against the virus.
Ebola is believed to have sickened more than 7,100 people in West Africa and killed more than 3,300, according to the World Health Organization.
Saudi Arabia has not discovered a single case of Ebola so far and is taking all measures to ensure the safety and health of the pilgrims, said Manal Mansour, the head of Saudi Health Ministry’s department for prevention of infectious diseases.
Those measure include asking pilgrims to fill out “medical screening cards with data” and asking about their travels in the past 21 days, Mansour said.
Read Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for more on this story.
