RIYADH — The health ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) convened their 5th extraordinary meeting Saturday in Riyadh, during which they discussed the importance of vaccinations as a safe means to protect communities to overcome the pandemic, with the need to sustain adherence to the approved precautionary measures. The meeting was chaired by the Bahraini Health Minister (the current president of the Council’s session), Faeqa Bin Saeed Al-Saleh, with the participation of the GCC health ministers and the GCC Secretary-General Nayef Falah Mubarak Al-Hajraf. During the meeting, the ministers expressed their appreciation to the GCC leaders for their unlimited support to the health sector and commended the distinguished efforts of health practitioners in the GCC countries and their dedication to fieldwork to confront the pandemic, praising all efforts exerted in order to ensure comprehensive and safe vaccination of the society. The ministers also stressed the importance of relying on applications approved in the GCC countries, and the importance of continued exchange of information between the member states, especially with regard to developments and mutations of the coronavirus, precautionary measures, and available vaccines and their effectiveness. The health officials also adopted the Gulf guideline for the use of vaccines, approved official applications related to the pandemic aimed to facilitate movability between the GCC countries, and called for cooperation with the respective authorities in each country to link these applications with an electronic integration network through the GCC health council, in addition to approving a study of the genetic sequence of the coronavirus in the GCC countries, and approving its allocated budget. — SPA