NEW DELHI: As many as 98 Indians have died during the annual pilgrimage of Haj to Mecca, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the deaths had been due to natural causes, chronic illnesses and old age.
“The Haj period is from May 9 to July 22… Six persons died on the day of Arafat and four were accident-related deaths. Last year, the total deaths in the Haj period were 187,” he said. The Union Health Ministry said 1,75,025 pilgrims undertook the Haj pilgrimage this year from India and 356 doctors and paramedics had been deployed for medical care.
Union Health Secretary Apurva Chandra released a document titled “Medical Care Arrangements for Haj Pilgrimage”. He said, “Of all pilgrims from India, nearly 40,000 were elderly above the age of 60. In view of the harsh weather conditions this year, the health challenges necessitated round-the-clock services for the pilgrims. Nearly 2 lakh OPDs were thus conducted along with visits by medical teams to the pilgrims.”
Chandra said, “The ministry is continuously monitoring the situation which will help us improve our services significantly.”
He said with the help of the National Informatics Centre, a live portal had been developed that provided real-time data and analysis on the pilgrims seeking medical care and services being provided.