Breaking: KSA Confirms 1st Coronavirus Death

Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia registered on Tuesday the first coronavirus death in the country.

"A 51-year-old Afghan man, who is a resident in Saudi Arabia, has died as he had been suffering from chronic diseases," the ministry said in a statement.

It added that 205 new coronavirus infected cases have been reported, bringing the total number of the confirmed cases in the Arab country to 767.

The ministry urged all the citizens to avoid any gathering to combat the spread of the virus across the country.

On March, 17, Saudi Arabia decided  to suspend all masses prayers including weekly Friday prayers in all mosques across the kingdom.

The suspension decision excludes the two holy mosques, according to the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars.

The move came as a part of the country’s precautionary measures to combat the COVID-19.

The Saudi Council of Senior Scholars said that all the mosques will be temporarily closed for the five daily Islamic prayers as well as the weekly Friday prayers.

It is worth mentioning that the Arab country has recorded 171 coronavirus cases, but no deaths so far.

On Wednesday, March 11, WHO declared that the coronavirus, which is spreading around the world, a “global pandemic; however it announced the novel COVID-19 is still “controllable”.

According to the organization, the number of the COVID-19 infections outside China has doubled in the past two weeks, and the number of countries hit by the epidemic has tripled.

“We are very concerned to achieve the alarming levels of the outbreak and its severity, as well as the alarming levels of inaction,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference in Geneva.

“Now, COVID-19 can be categorized as a pandemic… we have never seen a pandemic spread due to the coronavirus,” Adhanom added.