The head of oil giant Saudi Aramco was named today as Saudi Arabia's health minister as part of a major government reshuffle, a royal decree announced.
Khalid al-Falih will be tasked with leading the kingdom's battle against the deadly MERS virus and supervising hospitals in the country's south where wounded troops have been treated since March in skirmishes along the border with Yemen.
Aramco, the world's largest oil company in terms of crude production and exports, did not immediately announce who would replace Falih.
According to the company's website, Falih was the oil giant's president and CEO since 2009. He has spent his entire career of three decades at Saudi Aramco where he was in charge of 60,000 employees.
He is the fourth health minister to be named in the past year and succeeds Ahmed al-Khatib, who King Salman appointed in a January cabinet shuffle.
Khatib was later sacked and a caretaker has since carried out his duties.
Saudi news website Sabq.Org reported that Khatib was replaced over his "shortcomings" in dealing with hospitals in the country's south.
Saudi Arabia is the country worst affected by the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which has infected around 1,000 people and killed more than 400 since it was first identified in the kingdom in 2012.
Salman named a new crown prince and foreign minister on Wednesday among a series of high-level changes.
