The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced a new milestone digital health collaboration today to expand the Hajj health card initiative to support the roughly 3 million pilgrims who undertake the holy pilgrimage every year. The Hajj health card, built on the WHO Global Digital Health Certification Network's public key infrastructure, summarizes critical health information, such as medication needs, allergies, immunization status and pre-existing conditions. The card gives individuals agency over their own health information when they travel to Saudi Arabia so that they can provide authorized health providers access to accurate, up-to-date patient summary information and obtain personalized quality care.
Today marks a notable progress in WHO's support to Member States to expand access to safer and person-centered digital health tools for people to improve their access to quality health care when and where they need it. We are thankful for the excellent collaboration with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, participating countries, and the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, and look forward to further support building capacity and infrastructure in countries shifting to more digitized health systems." Dr.
Jeremy Farrar, WHO Chief Scientist The Hajj is the largest pilgrimage in the world, drawing almost 3 million pilgrims from over 180 countries every year. Over 250 000 pilgrims from 3 countries, Indonesia, Malaysia and Oman, were issu.