The choice, stated the fund, ‘will allow Muslims from all around the world vaccinated with Sputnik V to take part within the Hajj and the Umrah pilgrimages to Islam’s holiest websites within the cities of Mecca and Medina’.
Overseas vacationers vaccinated with Sputnik will nonetheless be required to quarantine for 48 hours and take a PCR check.
Saudi Arabia has joined greater than 100 international locations accepting guests vaccinated with Sputnik, the RDIF stated, including that solely 15 international locations together with the US presently require travellers to be jabbed with vaccines aside from Sputnik.
The hajj – a should for able-bodied Muslims not less than as soon as of their lives – sometimes packs tens of millions of pilgrims into congested non secular websites and could possibly be a serious supply of contagion in the course of the pandemic.
The outbreak has, for a second 12 months, pressured Saudi authorities to dramatically downsize the hajj, and simply 60,000 absolutely vaccinated residents and residents of the dominion have taken half this 12 months.
The virus has killed greater than 5 million folks since rising in China in December 2019.
Russia registered Sputnik V in August 2020 forward of large-scale scientific trials, prompting concern amongst consultants over the fast-tracked course of.
Nevertheless it was since declared secure and greater than 90% efficient in a report revealed by main medical journal the Lancet.
However the Russian vaccine has not to date been permitted by the World Well being Group or by the medical authorities of the European Union and the US.
