jeddah following the reoutbreak of covid19 and the rapid surge in the number of daily covid infections over the past few weeks saudi arabia has banned its citizens from traveling to sixteen countries including indiathe sixteen countries where the citizens of saudi arabia are banned to travel apart from india include lebanon syria turkey iran afghanistan yemen somalia ethiopia the democratic republic of the congo libya indonesia vietnam armenia belarus and venezuela reported gulf newsfurther the ministry of health in saudi arabia has assured the public that zero monkeypox cases have been detected in the country abdullah asiri deputy minister of health for preventive health has said that the kingdom has the capability to monitor and discover any suspected monkeypox cases and also to fight against the infection if any new case emergesuntil now cases of transmission between humans are very limited and therefore the possibility of any outbreaks occurring from it even in countries that have detected cases are very low he addedmeanwhile the world health organization who has confirmed 80 cases of monkeypox in 11 countries and said they are working to better understand the extent and cause of the outbreakin a statement issued on friday the who said the virus is endemic in some animal populations in a number of countries leading to occasional outbreaks among local people and travelers