COMMUNITY CASE STUDY article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1520179
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative Strategies for Urban Public Health Resilience in Crisis SituationsView all 9 articles
The Hajj Legacy and Saudi Arabia's Exemplary Response to COVID-19
Provisionally accepted
- 1Global Center of Mass Gatherings Medicine, Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- 2Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- 3King Saud University, Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The COVID-19 pandemic required strong public health measures globally. Saudi Arabia's effective pandemic management, leveraging its experience with mass gatherings like the Hajj pilgrimage, has been lauded globally. This study was developed using a narrative synthesis approach, based on a structured review of peer-reviewed literature (PubMed, Scopus) and official sources (Saudi MoH, WHO) covering March 2020-December 2024. This study examines Saudi Arabia's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular emphasis on the strategies implemented to safeguard the Hajj pilgrimage. The analysis is framed within the context of the World Health Organization's (WHO) COVID-19 After Action Review pillars, providing a structured evaluation of the Kingdom's efforts to mitigate risks and protect both pilgrims and the broader population. Topics covered include country-level coordination, risk communication, surveillance, border health, national laboratory systems, infection prevention, case management, operational support, and essential health services. Findings show that preexisting infrastructure and mass-gathering expertise enabled rapid activation of multisectoral task forces, adaptive risk-communication campaigns, and scalable testing and isolation protocols. The Hajj legacy strengthened laboratory diagnostics and surge staffing, informed border-screening algorithms, and guided large-event risk assessments. Integrating mass-gathering experience with WHO's framework fostered resilience to complex health emergencies. Saudi Arabia's model offers actionable insights for other nations seeking to harness cultural and organizational strengths in pandemic preparedness.
Keywords: Pandemics, Public Health: COVID-19, Mass gathering, Saudi Arabia, COVID - 19
Received: 30 Oct 2024; Accepted: 13 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Alsaleh, Balkhi, Alahmari and Khan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bander Balkhi, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.