ABU DHABI // Only one in 20 blood donations in the UAE comes from a woman - and doctors blame a lack of awareness of the causes of iron deficiency.
About 30 per cent of volunteers are women but most are rejected, said Nida'a, a lab technician at the Abu Dhabi Blood Bank.
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Technicians check each potential donor's weight, height, blood pressure, temperature, pulse and blood haemoglobin level.
The men are fine - "we usually are able to take blood from all of the men", said Nida'a - but the women are not. Barely one in three has 12.5g or more of haemoglobin for every 100ml of blood, the minimum required.
"We always find that women's haemoglobin levels, or the amount of iron in the blood, is much lower than men and much lower than our minimum requirements," said Nida'a.
There are medical reasons for this. Menstruation, ovulation, breastfeeding and pregnancy can all severely lower iron levels in the blood.
But Dr Ahmad al Emam, a blood diseases specialist at the Abu Dhabi Blood Bank, said women were also dieting to lose weight, usually without ensuring their nutritional needs were met.
The tendency towards large families also has an impact. Some 93 per cent of all donors in the UAE are aged between 18 and 44.
"Women who have consecutive pregnancies, which is typical in our Arab culture, don't allow their blood to recover after delivering before they conceive again, and that means they are usually borderline anaemic without even knowing it," Dr al Emam said.
The phenomenon is not confined to the UAE. Figures released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to mark World Blood Donor Day today show women in all of the Arab countries surveyed donate a lot less than men.
Women account for just 8 per cent of blood donors in Kuwait, 7 per cent in Oman, 5 per cent in Bahrain, 4 per cent in Qatar and 3 per cent in Jordan and Yemen.
By contrast, 50 per cent of donors in the US and Australia are women, 49 per cent in the UK and 47 per cent in France.
"These figures are really not surprising considering the cultural differences between an Arab woman and a western woman," said Dr Iman al Jabi, a consultant family doctor at a private clinic in Jordan.
Dr al Jabi attributed this in part to the Arab habit of drinking tea soon after a heavy meal.
"Black tea lowers the absorption of iron in the blood, which is why it should never be given to children and why it should never be consumed immediately after food," she said.
Arab women also tend to prefer intra-uterine devices - the coil - as their method of birth control, according to Dr al Jabi and Dr Bashar Abduh, a specialist gynaecologist and obstetrics doctor at Al Noor Hospital.
But the small, T-shaped plastic devices, which can stay in the uterus for up to 10 years, have an important health consequence for blood donation.
"One side effect of these intra-uterine devices is that they increase the blood flow during a period and so increase iron deficiency," said Dr Abduh.
There are no official numbers, but while only 2 per cent of women on contraceptives in the US use a coil, Dr Abduh suggested its use was far more prevalent among Arab women. Dr al Jabi said it was her patients' number one choice.
Women also often do not realise menorrhagia, or heavy and prolonged periods, is a condition that requires medical attention.
"Women who are obese also have heavy bleeding and they think this is perfectly normal, so they don't mention it to their doctors and don't get treatment for it," said Dr Abduh. "Meanwhile, they are anaemic and don't even know it."
The answer, said Dr al Emam, was education and awareness.
"We'd love to be able to take blood from our female volunteers but most of the time they are surprised to learn that their haemoglobin is low," he said.
Dr Abduh said Arab women were often disinclined to take supplements and, in general, lack awareness of the importance of taking iron pills.
"Western girls start taking iron as a supplement as soon as they reach puberty," he said.
"Meanwhile, I get newlywed women in my clinic who want to get pregnant, who have a haemoglobin count of seven or eight, and don't see why they need a supplement."
hkhalaf@thenational.ae
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Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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Flydubai flies direct from Dubai to Kilimanjaro International Airport from Dh1,350 return, including taxes; this can be followed by a short flight from Kilimanjaro to the Serengeti with Coastal Aviation from about US$700 (Dh2,500) return, including taxes. Kenya Airways, Emirates and Etihad offer flights via Nairobi or Dar es Salaam.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950