No adverse effects when receiving anesthesia and taking vaccines, says Saudi health official

There are no adverse effects receiving local or general anesthesia for recently vaccinated patients, including those who received vaccinations for the coronavirus, the Health Ministry’s spokesman said on Thursday.

This came in response to a person’s query regarding the amount of time an individual should wait between taking the vaccine and undergoing general anesthesia, claiming there were doctors who said 14 days must pass.

Health Ministry Spokesman Dr. Mohammed Al-Abd Al-Aly said that the vaccine is safe and effective and contributes to preventing infection with the virus.

He also called on the public to get information from official sources and to not follow rumors.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday reported 15 more COVID-19-related deaths, bringing the overall toll to 7,408.

There were 1,261 new cases, bringing the total number of people in the country who have contracted the disease to 454,217. A total of 9,925 cases remain active, 1,516 of which are in critical condition.

Of the newly recorded cases, 402 were in Makkah, 292 in Riyadh, 166 in the Eastern Province and 120 in Madinah.

The ministry said 1,364 patients had recovered from the disease, bringing the total number of recoveries in the Kingdom to 436,884.

Saudi Arabia has so far conducted 19,496,450 polymerase chain reaction tests, with 96,230 carried out in the past 24 hours.

Testing hubs and treatment centers set up throughout the country have helped hundreds of thousands of people since the pandemic outbreak.

Among them are the Taakad centers, which provide COVID-19 testing for those who show no or only mild symptoms or believe they have come into contact with an infected individual, and the Tetamman clinics, which offer treatment and advice to those with virus symptoms such as fever, loss of taste and smell, and breathing difficulties.

Appointments for both can be made via the ministry’s Sehhaty app.

Meanwhile, 14,561,687 people in the country to date have received the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Kingdom ranked first in the world for the response of the government and entrepreneurs to the pandemic. It advanced in the entrepreneurship status index to seventh place in the world after it was at 17th place, according to a report by the Global Entrepreneurship Program for the year 2020-21.