The speaker of Saudi Arabia’s consultative parliament on Monday stressed the importance of openness and transparency in fighting against the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome virus.
“It’s important that this kind of disease be announced publicly and dealt with transparently,” Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al ash-Sheikh, the speaker of the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia, said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency.
His remarks came as South Korea belatedly released the names of hospitals affected by the viral respiratory illness after being under fire for its poor initial response to the MERS virus.
Saudi Arabia has grappled with the most number of MERS cases in the world since the first official outbreak was reported in the country in 2012.
On Monday, South Korea reported its sixth death from the illness, along with 23 new cases, bringing the total number of people diagnosed to 87, the second-highest number of MERS cases outside the kingdom.
“As soon as this disease broke out, the government made efforts to make citizens aware of this illness,” the speaker said through an interpreter. “Increased caution among citizens kept the disease from spreading far and wide and it was dealt with well.”
Saudi Arabia has also appealed for international help, including from the World Health Organization as well as the United States, in the country’s successfully overcoming of its MERS spread, Sheikh said.
The Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia, also known as Shura Council, is the formal advisory body of the Saudi Arabian monarch, with the limited power of proposing laws to the king and Cabinet.
Also touching on economic cooperation between South Korea and the Arab country, the assembly speaker expressed hopes for more South Korean firms’ participation in the country’s mega-size construction projects to be launched.
“Although there are many competing countries in the projects, I hope South Korea can participate because it’s a long-time close country and contributed so much to Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure building in the past,” he noted. (Yonhap)
