Pilgrimage and COVID-19: The risk among returnees from Muslim countries.

Abstract COVID-19 has now spread to become a pandemic. We confirmed six Muslim pilgrims with COVID-19 among the passengers on a flight from Pakistan, following a border inspection in Guangzhou, China. We subsequently alerted home countries to prepare early in order to manage the risk from returning pilgrims. The resulting strategies of inspection and quarantine needed to cover those returning from all Muslim countries, not just Saudi Arabia.