Context: The pilgrimage occurs from the 8th to 12th or 13th of Dhu al-Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic calendar, with a population of more than 2 million pilgrims in Mecca. Muslims have a series of verdicts in an appealing scenario such as Abraham the prophet. The Hajj pilgrimage is one of the most important verdicts in not only Islam but also all of the Abrahamian religions. Hajj is the 2...

We determined the carriage rate of Neisseria meningitidis before and after hajj pilgrimage among a group (1) of 674 randomly selected Iranian pilgrims, and the effect of 500 mg of ciprofloxacin given 24 hours before return on the reduction of meningococcal carriers among another group (2) of 123 randomly selected Iranian pilgrims. Throat specimens taken 1 hour before departure on the hajj and i...

A mass gathering (MG) is defined by World Health Organization (WHO) as “any occasion, either organized or spontaneous, that attracts sufficient numbers of people to strain the planning and response resources of the community, city or nation hosting the event” (1). Hajj pilgrimage is one of the fundamental pillars of Islam which must be performed by those Muslims with adequate means and health o...

Hajj is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The 2012 Hajj is expected to gather over two million Muslims from more than 180 countries across the globe between 24 and 29 October and is by far the largest mass gathering in the world. With the Hajj approaching, the Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia has issued information in Arabic and English about health requiremen...

BACKGROUND/AIM The annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, which attracts more than 3 million Muslim pilgrims from around the world, has played a role in the global spread of meningococcal infection. We aimed to compare pharyngeal carriage of Neisseria meningitidis in Hajj pilgrims before departure and after returning to Iran, Zahedan. MATERIALS AND METHODS This prospective and cross-sectional study...

BACKGROUND Approximately 80 000 Egyptians participate in Hajj pilgrimage annually. The purpose of this study was to estimate influenza virus and MERS-CoV prevalence among Egyptian pilgrims returning from Hajj. STUDY A cross-sectional survey among 3 364 returning Egyptian pilgrims from 2012 to 2015 was conducted. Nasopharyngeal (NP) and oropharyngeal (OP) swabs were collected from all particip...

hajj and pilgrimage is the most important source of providing human resource for pilgrimage caravans. without a doubt, the heads of this organization need to be trained. based on this need, this study seeks to identify and rank the training needs of hajj caravan actors. the population of this study includes all the managers/administrators of hajj caravans in 2013.a sample of 222 managers/admini...

We report here the main characteristics of 'Pseudomonas saudiphocaensis' strain 20_BNT (CSUR P1224), a new species of the Pseudomonas genus that was isolated from currency notes collected during the Hajj pilgrimage in 2012 at Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

BACKGROUND Hajj pilgrimage, in Saudi Arabia, is one of the world's largest religious mass gatherings. We have similar mass gathering scenarios in India such as the Amarnath Yatra and Kumbh. A unique combination of physical, physiological, and psychological factors makes this pilgrimage a very stressful milieu. We studied the emergence of psychopathology and its determinants, in this adverse env...

An outbreak of serogroup W-135 meningococcal disease was reported among pilgrims returning from the annual hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) in mid-March 2000. Molecular characterization was used to investigate the similarity of the hajj-associated W-135 strains with those isolated in Sweden during a 23-year period (1978 to 2000). The same hajj-associated genosubtype, genosubtype P1.5,2,36b, has been ...