Director Message

Chair President’s Brief:

Viral hemorrhagic fevers are among the most serious types of fevers known in the history of medicine. They are caused by lethal viruses, that belong to four different virus families which no exist at all continents. These families are Arenaviridae, Flaviridae, Bunyaviridae and Filoviridae. Most of these viruses are transmitted by arthropods, including the flying arthropods such as mosquitoes and the non- flying such as ticks. Viral hemorrhagic fevers are always available where the vector(s) are present, regardless of the nature of the climate (cold or hot weather).

Hemorrhagic Viruses cause severe per-acute hemorrhagic fever in humans. The disease is manifested by hepatitis, encephalitis, bleeding from the gums, rectum, bloody vomition, melena, subcutaneous haemorrhages and haematuria. The case fatality rate can reach 25%.

Realizing the dangers of these viruses, it was thought of establishing a scientific chair to conduct high flying research aiming at enrichment of human knowledge and thought; and to serve the local environment in the Kingdom. Indeed, this is expected to be one of the strongest assets of scientific knowledge in the kingdom and world –wide. The chair will perform research on the different aspects of the physico-chemical properties of the virus, its morphological and other characteristics; beside studies on epidemiology of the disease it causes. Such information are actually missing in the international literature.

Our ambitions in the chair are to enlighten areas of diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases caused by hemorrhagic viruses through in-depth studies in the epidemiology of hemorrhagic fevers in humans; and to elucidate the role of animals in the epidemiology of the disease, to identify the insect vector(s) that are involved in transmission of the disease, isolation of the virus, development of immuno- labeled sensitive techniques for its diagnosis and hopefully development of an efficacious vaccine against the disease . We hope soon, with Allah help, to see the light of what we aspire to be achieved.