An American doctor has used an award from the UAE to make major strides in the field of paediatric ophthalmology.
Boston Children's Hospital ophthalmologist-in-chief Dr David Hunter is the co-creator of Blinq, a device that can detect vision problems in young children. Dr Hunter and his team received a $50,000 award from the Sheikh Zayed Institute in 2014.
“It's been 10 years since we won that award but we do now have a device that's commercially available … to test preschool kids for this condition,” Dr Hunter told The National of the technology, co-developed with Dr David Guyton at Johns Hopkins.
Blinq can detect amblyopia – when one eye or both eyes have weak sight, making it difficult for people to process what they are seeing. Healthy eyesight could be hindered if the “lazy eye” is not caught early in childhood.
It can also detect microstrabismus, a misalignment that can result in crossed eyes or double vision.
Amblyopia and strabismus are the most common eye conditions in children. The National Institutes of Health says between 2 per cent and 5 per cent of the population has amblyopia and Boston Children's Hospital estimates 2 per cent to 4 per cent have strabismus.
“Hundreds of thousands of kids who have this problem … aren't getting detected,” said Dr Hunter, who is also a professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School.
“So if you can pick this up … by 18 months of age, two years of age, three years of age, you've got plenty of time then to initiate glasses, patching, surgery, whatever is needed to restore the eye alignment issues.”
Both the US and UAE have mandated newborn screening for hearing loss and congenital diseases but vision is often not checked unless a prevalent and severe eye issue is detected – and eye care is often not prioritised until later years.
Only 14 per cent of US children younger than seven undergo eye exams, research by CooperVision found in February.
However, doctors emphasise that early detection and intervention is important for healthy eyesight.
The UAE health sector has supported eye check-up campaigns for young children, with the Dubai Health Authority's Public Health Protection Department holding a vision-screening campaign for more than 26,000 children in 2022 and 2023. And this year in the US, a bill was introduced in Congress that called for eye checks and vision care for young children.
“Vision and eye health is a critical aspect of a child’s healthy development that has been overlooked for far too long,” Representative Marc Veasey, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement.
Representative Gus Bilirakis, co-sponsor of the legislation, said: “As an American who has suffered from poor vision since childhood, I have a first-hand understanding of how critical early detection and treatment is when it comes to ensuring that all children have the best possible start in life.”
If passed, the bill would provide grants to US states and communities for vision screenings for early detection of issues in children – and enact approaches for referrals and follow-ups.
“That act is very important to promote vision screening as it properly should be done. The question is – what my bias is – what technology is going to be used to do that?” Dr Hunter said.
Beyond amblyopia and strabismus, Dr Hunter said Blinq's retina scan feature also detects low vision and other eye issues.
“Anything that causes a medical problem with visual acuity, where you cannot correct the eye to better than normal vision, then they're going to get a referral from this device,” he said.
The Blinq device has been used by state health departments, paediatricians and primary care physicians for three years now, with reported 97 per cent accuracy.
Dr Hunter said the Sheikh Zayed Institute award allowed for the expanding of his team, bringing the medical device out of the incubation stage in the laboratory and through required tests for federal approval. It is the first and only Food and Drug Administration-approved device that detects amblyopia and strabismus.
He said the award came at a “pivotal point” for Blinq and his company – Rebion, previously REBIScan – as without it “we might not have got past the incubation stage”.
It beat 56 submissions from five countries to be one of eight finalists and two winners in the category focused on paediatric surgical innovation.
Dr Hunter said three contractors were hired to contribute in various parts of development over seven years before the scanner was approved and adopted for use.
“Sometimes you wonder when you give these awards whether they're going to make it, make a difference … when you have a programme like this and these investments in research, they can take years to pay off, but eventually they do,” he said.
The company is currently working on another version of the device that is lighter, cheaper and easier to make.
“We just don't want to lose sight of the power of science and technology and research, and what it means to invest in ventures that may or may not look like they are promising at the outset,” Dr Hunter emphasised. “You never know which one's going to going to take off.”
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Name: Garbine Muguruza (ESP)
World ranking: 15 (will rise to 5 on Monday)
Date of birth: October 8, 1993
Place of birth: Caracas, Venezuela
Place of residence: Geneva, Switzerland
Height: 6ft (1.82m)
Career singles titles: 4
Grand Slam titles: 2 (French Open 2016, Wimbledon 2017)
Career prize money: $13,928,719
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Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
The biog
Age: 46
Number of Children: Four
Hobby: Reading history books
Loves: Sports
Who was Alfred Nobel?
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.
- In his will he dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
- Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
- Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
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Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
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The specs: 2018 Opel Mokka X
Price, as tested: Dh84,000
Engine: 1.4L, four-cylinder turbo
Transmission: Six-speed auto
Power: 142hp at 4,900rpm
Torque: 200Nm at 1,850rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L / 100km
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sept 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
From Europe to the Middle East, economic success brings wealth - and lifestyle diseases
A rise in obesity figures and the need for more public spending is a familiar trend in the developing world as western lifestyles are adopted.
One in five deaths around the world is now caused by bad diet, with obesity the fastest growing global risk. A high body mass index is also the top cause of metabolic diseases relating to death and disability in Kuwait, Qatar and Oman – and second on the list in Bahrain.
In Britain, heart disease, lung cancer and Alzheimer’s remain among the leading causes of death, and people there are spending more time suffering from health problems.
The UK is expected to spend $421.4 billion on healthcare by 2040, up from $239.3 billion in 2014.
And development assistance for health is talking about the financial aid given to governments to support social, environmental development of developing countries.
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
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- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
BMW M5 specs
Engine: 4.4-litre twin-turbo V-8 petrol enging with additional electric motor
Power: 727hp
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Transmission: 8-speed auto
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Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
Company: Instabug
Founded: 2013
Based: Egypt, Cairo
Sector: IT
Employees: 100
Stage: Series A
Investors: Flat6Labs, Accel, Y Combinator and angel investors
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The drill
Recharge as needed, says Mat Dryden: “We try to make it a rule that every two to three months, even if it’s for four days, we get away, get some time together, recharge, refresh.” The couple take an hour a day to check into their businesses and that’s it.
Stick to the schedule, says Mike Addo: “We have an entire wall known as ‘The Lab,’ covered with colour-coded Post-it notes dedicated to our joint weekly planner, content board, marketing strategy, trends, ideas and upcoming meetings.”
Be a team, suggests Addo: “When training together, you have to trust in each other’s abilities. Otherwise working out together very quickly becomes one person training the other.”
Pull your weight, says Thuymi Do: “To do what we do, there definitely can be no lazy member of the team.”
On Instagram: @WithHopeUAE
Although social media can be harmful to our mental health, paradoxically, one of the antidotes comes with the many social-media accounts devoted to normalising mental-health struggles. With Hope UAE is one of them.
The group, which has about 3,600 followers, was started three years ago by five Emirati women to address the stigma surrounding the subject. Via Instagram, the group recently began featuring personal accounts by Emiratis. The posts are written under the hashtag #mymindmatters, along with a black-and-white photo of the subject holding the group’s signature red balloon.
“Depression is ugly,” says one of the users, Amani. “It paints everything around me and everything in me.”
Saaed, meanwhile, faces the daunting task of caring for four family members with psychological disorders. “I’ve had no support and no resources here to help me,” he says. “It has been, and still is, a one-man battle against the demons of fractured minds.”
In addition to With Hope UAE’s frank social-media presence, the group holds talks and workshops in Dubai. “Change takes time,” Reem Al Ali, vice chairman and a founding member of With Hope UAE, told The National earlier this year. “It won’t happen overnight, and it will take persistent and passionate people to bring about this change.”
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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