The Saudi Royal Family have made the move to begin accepting vaccinated foreign pilgrims to the holy city of Mecca, travel requests will be admissible from Monday 16th August.
King Salman and Mohammed bin Salmman closed the Kingdom’s borders 18 months ago when the coronavirus pandemic began hit.
Up until now only a small amount of residential pilgrims were allowed to visit the holy sites, last month approximately 60,000 vaccinated residents took part in a greatly scaled-down Hajj.
The Saudi Royal Family have decided to initially allow up to 60,000 pilgrims to visit Mecca and Medina each month, with a gradually increase in numbers planned until reaching two million pilgrims per month. The SPA stated that Saudi Arabia recognises the Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
