UAE is prepared for any future pandemic; official recalls lessons learnt during Covid

Although pandemics may be inevitable, the UAE has systems in place to prepare for imminent threats to public health, according to a senior health official. Dr Hussain Abdul Rahman Al Rand, the assistant undersecretary for the Public Health Sector of MoHAP (Ministry of Health and Prevention) said on Wednesday at the Abu Dhabi Global Health Week event that the country has a comprehensive plan set in place to tackle any emerging public health threats. 

Al Rand said that the UAE’s National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority (NCEMA) is always ready with strategies to fight potential pandemics. He recalled that once on December 31st, 2019, NCEMA held a meeting five days later to track flights coming from China and had prepared for the inevitable.

He added, “always in the UAE, we or any instability. So, we bring all the stakeholders together. We make plans, we use artificial intelligence, to predict any sort of pandemic or disease.” He said that there are negotiations with vaccine manufacturing companies to provide vaccines for pandemics, such as the flu, and Ebola, not only for the UAE population, but for other countries as well.

Al Rand continued, “the vision of the leader of the UAE is proactive. The late Sheikh Zayed, always said, 'you should be there to help also not only your people who are living with you but help others. Other nations need it'.” 

“No one will be safe unless all of us are safe,” Al Rand added, saying that leaders’ focus should be working with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to protect all members of the community, not only those which reside within their country’s borders.

“We have prepared a list of companies who manufacture vaccines, and we negotiate with them. During the pandemic, for example, and now for the flu, for the Mpox, Ebola, all these companies have been traced and negotiated with, and to see how we can have not only for the UAE, but also to help others,” the MoHAP official said.

Photo: File

Regional approach is the only real solution to overcoming a pandemic, Adonis Georgiadis, the Greek minister of health and Dr Jean Kaseya, the director general of Africa CDC reiterated.  “Pandemics are accelerating, mostly because of decrease in funding,” Dr Kaseya said. He added that one of the main lessons learnt from the was to take a regional rather than a country-based approach.