Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus (MERS-CoV) is a new virus that was first discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012 (1). Assessing the different aspects of pilgrims’ awareness about MERS-CoV will help to determine their need for educational programs about it. To best of our knowledge, there is a lack of studies addressing such topic among pilgrims.

A cross sectional study was carried out during Ramadan 2015 at the Holy Mosque in Makkah, Saudi Arabia.  Self-developed questionnaires have been collected conveniently from 417 Arab participants, both Saudi and non-Saudi. The questionnaire was designed to involve mainly two parts. The first part involves the socio-demographic characteristics ( age, gender, nationality, education, occupation, receiving health advice about the disease). The Second part contains 23 structured questions, with 'yes', 'no' answers, which deals with the health beliefs about the disease in term of the nature of the disease, perception of its seriousness, heard of it before, MERS-Cov's Symptomatology, its modes of transmission and preventive measures undertaken to prevent the dissemination of the disease. The questionnaire was found to be reliable with Cronbach's Alpha of 0.875. Permission and Ethical Approval to conduct the study was granted by King Saud University, Deanship of Scientific Research.

The pilgrims have generally a satisfactory knowledge about the symptoms of the disease but most of them do not know it can be without symptoms. Knowing this fact is very important in infection control and demands health education because patients without symptoms could be a source of infection to other people especially those with compromised immunity.

In addition, the pilgrims have a satisfactory knowledge about most of MERS-CoV's modes of transmissions. However, more than half of participants did not believe of animals as a mode of transmission, which proven in many studies (2, 3). This is needed to be addressed in education of pilgrims.

Majority of the pilgrims have a good knowledge about the protective measures of MERS-Cov transmission, which is promising.

We would like to thank KSU Life Club Volunteers for their help in collecting the data.

1- Zaki AM, van Boheemen S, Bestebroer TM, Osterhaus AD, Fouchier RA. Isolation of a novel coronavirus from a man with pneumonia in Saudi Arabia. The New England journal of medicine. 2012;367(19):1814-20.

2- Balkhair A, Alawi FB, Al Maamari K, Al Muharrmi Z, Ahmed O. MERS-CoV: Bridging the Knowledge Gaps. Oman medical journal. 2014;29(3):169-71.

3- Omrani A, Al-Tawfiq J, Memish Z. Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV): animal to human interaction. Pathogens and Global Health. 2015;109(8):354-362.