WHO and Saudi Arabia announce new digital health collaboration to support Hajj pilgrims

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced a new escalation of a partnership for digital health today to extend the Hajj health card project for the about 3 million people who perform the Islamic pilgrimage annually.

The Hajj health card which follows the architecture of WHO Global Digital Health Certification Network Public Key Infrastructure contains the summary of other essential, general health information including but not limited to medications, allergies, immunization and health pre-existing conditions. The card empowers an individual to manage his or her health information while in Saudi Arabia so as to enable the authorised health provider get value added updated summary of patient’s overall health records together with receiving quality health care.

Being the largest B2C transaction in the world, almost 3 million people from more than 180 countries perform the Hajj annually. Hajj health cards were issued to over 250 000 pilgrims from three countries, Indonesia, Malaysia and Oman in 2024 as a result of the pilot phase of the partnership between WHO and KSA. This test-phase proved that each country can use the international standards to launch the national version of the card that improved the pilgrims’ safety and the quality of the provided care during the Hajj.

WHO and the Saudi Arabia signed a joint communiqué to continue enhancing and increasing the scope of the pilot programme on the Hajj health card. The technological resources contributed by the Saudi government and LEAN, their implementing partner will enhance data protection with additional countries onboard the Hajj health card system.

“This collaboration between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the World Health Organization to pilot the Hajj health card program in extended pilgrimage sites improves the health and welfare of millions of worshippers,” said Dr Hanan Balkhy, WHO EMRO Director. ‘Through digital health solutions, we enhance and support the quality of care and, in turn, assist in enhancing the health systems of the Eastern Mediterranean Region and globally.

About 80 countries were accepted in the WHOs digital health certification system

The GDHCN was started in 2023 to leverage WHO’s work with EU countries and other member states for supporting COVID-19 vaccination certificates. The current GDHCN membership is over 80 of the WHO Member States that have developed verifying procedures between each other for the reliability of the health information offered including a new international ISO standard, IPS or International Patient Summary.

The GDHCN is underpinned by a strong public key infrastructure (PKI) encryption system thus maintaining the credentialed and deterministic integrity of health credentials such that national authorities and health service providers can trust artefacts of health such as passports, identities, visas and other related documents containing health information of individuals without infringing privacy.

The goal of the initiative is to inch society to a digital health future so that people can travel or seek for standardised and preferable health care solutions anywhere in the world with an involving mark of universally accepted health credentials. This raises ability and opportunity of people to manage their health information with an option to choose which health information to share while seeking care locally or internationally.

With the certification network established nations are able to reduce the administrative work thus making the border controls less cumbersome and health visits more informed. It sets the foundation for sustainable incremental enhancements of the global pursuit of integrated solutions to global health issues and fosters future-oriented use cases like automated cross-border prescription, insurance or telemedicine.