Saudi Arabia continues to make steady progress in preventing the spread of the the Coronavirus after overcoming two waves of new cases and deaths, according to official government data.
The Saudi Arabia health ministry on Tuesday reported 1,114 new cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with 1,044 recoveries. Thirty-one deaths were also reported. There are 22,114 active cases in the country, of which 1,639 are in critical condition.
Since early July, the Kingdom has steadily reduced daily new cases to roughly one-quarter of peak rates. On July 6th, Saudi Arabia had 4,207 new cases. Tuesday’s figure of 1,114 marks a nearly two-month-long steady decline.
Daily new cases of Coronavirus in Saudi Arabia, per worldometers.info.
Saudi Arabia will also allow the testing of a trial Coronavirus vaccine, produced by China’s CanSino Biologics. The company is set to launch Phase III clinical trial of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate, Ad5-nCOV, in the Kingdom soon, according to reports.
Saudi Arabia’s health minister has revealed that Saudi Arabia “is working with Oxford in the UK and with Russia, the US and China on a COVID-19 vaccine, but he confirmed that it would not be used on people until it had passed tests by the Saudi Food and Drug Federation (SFDA),” Arab News reported this week.
“Our leadership is keen on boosting whatever is needed to enhance the health of society and vaccine availability, and to be one of the first to acquire a vaccine, but the safety of the vaccine and the procedure employed are also of great importance when approving any treatment,” Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, Saudi Arabia’s Minster of Health, said in an interview with Al Arabiya.
The minister added in his interview with Al Arabiya that the situation is stable in Saudi Arabia, where health services and tests are available to all those who need them. “One of the reasons for our number of tests is that we have 21 testing centers that are accessible by car. A person can book an appointment on their phone and go to get tested. The number of tests done in a day can exceed 70,000. The high number of tests helps to reveal infected individuals at an early stage, which helps us with prevention. Although our case numbers are high, our number of deaths is low in comparison to total cases; it is also the lowest among G20 countries,” he said.
