Congressional Committee on COVID-19 (Arab Congress)

The Congressional Committee on COVID-19 (Arabic: مجلس المؤتمر لفيروس كورونا ٢٠١٩ majlis al-mu’tamr li-fīrūs kūrūnā alfayn wa-‘tis‘at ‘ashr) is an Arab Congress joint congressional committee, formed in December 2019 to plan for and direct the Arab Union federal government's national legislative response to the imminent global pandemic of the novel Coronavirus disease 2019/COVID-19. The congressional committee is chaired by Council of Republics Palestinian Junior Senator Dr. Mohammed Esseneineh and co-chaired by Union University Hospital Dean and former Ministry of Health National Director of Disease Control Dr. Marwan Khan.

As funding for a number of essential government services relies upon congressional approval of budgets, this particular congressional committee has played an invaluable role in maintaining the necessary levels of resources and infrastructure to continue to adequately cope with the pandemic. The committee has also been a central element to the the gathering of COVID-19 data (such as rates of infection, recovery and death, as well as the collection and sorting of local government data, and the extrapolation of said data against known extenuating factors to detect patterns and potentially develop more efficient strategy.