The Gulf Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (GCDC), an integral part of the Gulf Health Council, marked a significant milestone by forging an agreement on health data sharing among its member nations. Established just two years ago, the GCDC has rapidly progressed towards its mission of enhancing public health across the Gulf region through collaboration and information exchange.
Dr Amal bint Saif al Maaniyah, Director-General of Diseases Surveillance Control at the Ministry of Health in Oman, emphasised the importance of this new framework. She highlighted how the GCDC's technical teams would now conduct risk assessments simultaneously for all Gulf countries while tailoring recommendations based on distinct factors. This proactive approach ensures that all member nations are well prepared to efficiently manage any emerging health risks or hazards.
Dr Amal, who represented the Sultanate of Oman in leading the supervising committee of the Gulf CDC, shared her insights during the recent ministerial meeting hosted in Oman. She underlined the productive year that the Gulf CDC had experienced in 2023, as it laid the foundation for preventing and controlling both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Notably, the CDC had also launched its website and secured approval for sharing communicable disease data among Gulf Council countries.
Dr Amal stressed the vital role played by the Gulf Health Council in consolidating resources to bolster regional capacity for disease management. Given the Gulf region's shared environment and epidemiological characteristics, countries provide mutual support in disease prevention and management.
She cautioned that while the Covid-19 pandemic was not over, effective preventative strategies, including immunisation, had transformed it into a manageable seasonal disease, akin to influenza. Furthermore, Dr Amal expressed concerns about the spread of potentially dangerous communicable diseases, such as hemorrhagic fevers, cholera, and polio, from other parts of the world. The GCDC is actively addressing these challenges by collaborating on vaccine-preventable and non-vaccine communicable diseases.
An essential aspect of this collaborative effort includes screening immigrant workers in approved centres under the Wafid programme of the Gulf Health Council. Dr Amal emphasised the programme's significance in preventing the movement of infected individuals into Gulf countries, averting the potential spread of diseases like tuberculosis (TB) and vaccine-preventable diseases like measles.
In conjunction with the Gulf Health Council, the Gulf Centre for Disease Prevention and Control is committed to fostering a united front in tackling communicable and non-communicable diseases protecting the well-being of all Gulf nations through data sharing, resource consolidation, and collaborative initiatives.
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