An Abu Dhabi hospital is helping in the fight against super bugs with an online portal for doctors that provides local data on resistance to antibiotics.
Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City, a collaboration of Mayo Clinic and Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (Seha), created the platform to promote the proper use of antibiotics and assess resistance to them.
Antibiotics, which kill bacteria, have saved many millions of lives since they were first used routinely in the 1940s.
But they have been prescribed too often unnecessarily, which has created resistant bacteria known as superbugs, making it harder to treat serious infections.
Antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest public health challenges of our time
Dr Zahir Babiker
The hospital's platform gives up-to-date guidance on treatment options, local patterns of antimicrobial resistance and drug information to ensure they are used safely and effectively.
The information can be accessed by mobile phones and computers.
“Antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest public health challenges of our time, with nearly five million associated deaths reported in 2019 alone, based on a recent study by The Lancet,” said Dr Zahir Babiker, a consultant physician at SSMC's Division of Tropical and Infectious Diseases.
“Antimicrobial resistance occurs when germs present in the human body stop responding to the medications designed to kill them. As a result, germs such as bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses will continue to grow and pose a serious risk to the lives of people who are harbouring those germs.
“Therefore, careful use of antimicrobial agents such as antibiotics is important and requires educating people and persuading clinicians to follow an evidence-based approach for prescribing antibiotics.”
Overprescription is a major factor behind antimicrobial resistance.
Antibiotics are often overprescribed when people seek a prescription believing it will cure them, while doctors fear a reaction if they refuse to write one.
Antibiotics do not work against viruses.
And they can do harm, even if they are needed to treat bacterial infections.
Studies have shown that antibiotics can weaken the body’s immune system’s ability to fight infection, and could be implicated in the development of autoimmune diseases.
But prescription drugs such as Penicillin — the world's first antibiotic discovered by Scottish researcher Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928 — have saved millions of lives.
And if they are no longer effective, medical professionals fear patients would be left at greater risk from serious infections through something as innocuous as a scratch.
A report on the scale of the problem, conducted in 2014 by the economist Jim O’Neill, suggested current annual death rates caused by antimicrobial resistant infections could be as high as 700,000, and may rise to 10 million by 2050 if nothing is done.
“We still have a long way to go to raise awareness and educate the broader public about the seriousness of antimicrobial resistance and that antibiotics are neither a one-size-fits-all solution nor the only solution,” Dr Babiker said.
“We are optimistic that with antimicrobial management tools we can equip ourselves with the information we need to devise the best care plans for our patients, including those infected with resistant germs.”
The UAE operates its own Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme, run by the Department of Health of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, which collects data from dozens of hospitals.
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What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
A meeting of young minds
The 3,494 entries for the 2019 Sharjah Children Biennial come from:
435 – UAE
2,000 – China
808 – United Kingdom
165 – Argentina
38 – Lebanon
16 – Saudi Arabia
16 – Bangladesh
6 – Ireland
3 – Egypt
3 – France
2 – Sudan
1 – Kuwait
1 – Australia
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Who has been sanctioned?
Daniella Weiss and Nachala
Described as 'the grandmother of the settler movement', she has encouraged the expansion of settlements for decades. The 79 year old leads radical settler movement Nachala, whose aim is for Israel to annex Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where it helps settlers built outposts.
Harel Libi & Libi Construction and Infrastructure
Libi has been involved in threatening and perpetuating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinians. His firm has provided logistical and financial support for the establishment of illegal outposts.
Zohar Sabah
Runs a settler outpost named Zohar’s Farm and has previously faced charges of violence against Palestinians. He was indicted by Israel’s State Attorney’s Office in September for allegedly participating in a violent attack against Palestinians and activists in the West Bank village of Muarrajat.
Coco’s Farm and Neria’s Farm
These are illegal outposts in the West Bank, which are at the vanguard of the settler movement. According to the UK, they are associated with people who have been involved in enabling, inciting, promoting or providing support for activities that amount to “serious abuse”.
Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
Jewel of the Expo 2020
252 projectors installed on Al Wasl dome
13.6km of steel used in the structure that makes it equal in length to 16 Burj Khalifas
550 tonnes of moulded steel were raised last year to cap the dome
724,000 cubic metres is the space it encloses
Stands taller than the leaning tower of Pisa
Steel trellis dome is one of the largest single structures on site
The size of 16 tennis courts and weighs as much as 500 elephants
Al Wasl means connection in Arabic
World’s largest 360-degree projection surface
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Akeed
Based: Muscat
Launch year: 2018
Number of employees: 40
Sector: Online food delivery
Funding: Raised $3.2m since inception
Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
Company%20profile
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