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UAE Freezones Biz News Updates
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Healthcare is all about personalised medicine: Princess Haya
Princess
Haya who attended the Leaders Conference at Arab Health 2016 on Thursday said
that personalised treatment to individual patients based on their genetic code
is the way forward.
With unique genetic make-up presenting challenges, it is time to give
personalised treatment, says Princess Haya bint Hussein.
This year, healthcare is all about personalised medicine, said Princess Haya
bint Hussein, wife of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum,
Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, at the
Leaders Conference held as part of Arab Health 2016.
Princess Haya on Thursday officially launched the College of Medicine and
its degree programme for medical undergraduates at the Mohammed Bin Rashid
University of Medicine and Health Sciences, when visiting the Dubai
Healthcare City pavilion.
Addressing a room full of industry leaders on Thursday, she said: "In the
UAE, improving our nation's healthcare is one of our top priorities.
However, our rapidly growing population, with unique genetic make-up,
changing demographics, and lifestyle habits, continue to present us with
challenges."
"We are still bombarded with new cases of diabetes, heart disease, and
cancer that make us wonder that perhaps we need to do more than just have
universal healthcare provision, with one size fits all? Perhaps it is time
to get personal?," she said.
She also said that personalised medicine meant tailoring treatment to
individual patients based on their genetic code. "It is a move away from a
'one size fits all' approach to treatment and care to one which uses
emergent approaches in diagnostic tests, functional genomics, molecular
pathway, and real-time data analysis to tailor make the treatment to fit the
individual patient needs - more of special size for one person."
Princess Haya also said that emerging evidence over the past two decades
shows that the traditional practice of one-size-fits-all often misses its
mark.
"Every day, millions of people around the world are taking medications that
are not useful to them. At best, the top 10 highest grossing drugs in the
USA help less than 50 per cent of those taking them," she said. "Is it right
to subject patients to side effects from drugs that are of no benefit to
them? Is this ethical or justifiable? At a time of scarce healthcare
resources, is it sensible to be spending money on medications that simply
don't work for the majority of those who take them?" she questioned.
Quoting figures from the International Diabetes Federation, she said the
disease costs Dh7,000 per person in the UAE. At approximately 800,000 cases
tabulated for 2014, the seemingly negligible per person figure becomes
dangerously alarming at a total of Dh5.6 billion.
"Imagine what we could do with this money if we did not have to spend it
catering to a disease that could be curbed through the synergies of modern
medicine, diagnostics and pharmacology."
Jan 29, 2016
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Courtesy Khaleej Times
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