The Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the global organisation specialising in healthcare supply chain standards.
The MoU aims to prevent entry of counterfeit health products, improve patient safety and compliance with regulations, and enhance the safety of medical and pharma products.
Traceability standards provide a unified and approved mechanism in the healthcare sector and supporting systems to ensure the transparency of data for each drug product.
Under this MoU, the Ministry shall apply global traceability standards to drugs and medical products through the smart and innovative tracking platform ‘Tatmeen’, using GS1 barcodes.
This would help scan pharmaceutical products with a barcode reader in pharmacies and hospitals, thus identifying counterfeit medicines.
On the other hand, ‘Tatmeen’ platform provides the concerned parties in the supply chain with the ability to track the movement of medicines, while allowing community members to check the authenticity of drugs using mobile phone applications.
“The UAE is one of the world’s leading countries in combating drug counterfeiting. It has teamed up with international organizations to ensure the safety and quality of imported and exported medicines in accordance with the highest international standards,” said Abdullah Ahmed Ahli, Acting Assistant Undersecretary for the Support Services Sector.
He pointed to the importance of this agreement in enhancing the UAE’s leadership in this field, stressing that building quality and safety for therapeutic, healthcare and pharmaceutical systems according to international standards is one of the ministry’s most important strategic goals.
Therefore, enhancing drug safety is an essential part of the Ministry’s objectives, which seek to maintain patient safety and enhance community protection.
Speaking on the occasion Ali Al Ajmi, Director of Digital Health Department at the ministry stressed that the signing of the agreement, which coincided with the launch of the first phase of the ‘Tatmeen’ platform, MoHAP’s innovative initiative to track pharma and medical products from production to end-use, will contribute to aligning “Tatmeen” with the health regulations of international accreditation bodies.
According to the agreement, ‘Tatmeen’ shall adopt the global standard for drug tracking, which enhances the safety and reliability of the drug supply chain and contributes to improving interconnectivity and enhancing transparency in all drug products, their movement, and associated approvals and levels of supply for all approved government bodies.
The use of global drug tracking standards would also help pharma and distribution companies, as well as healthcare providers, to follow safety protocols and procedures to ensure drug and patient safety.
Ramy Habbal, CEO of the organisation highlighted the significance of the agreement in strengthening the partnership with the Ministry of Health to achieve full traceability in healthcare.
He affirmed that the MoU would help enhance the levels of security, safety and reliability of the pharmaceutical supply chain and reduce counterfeit and substandard medicines.
Source: Emirates News Agency
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Emirates Group reports AED24.7 billion revenue in first half
The Emirates Group today announced its half-year results for its 2021/2022 financial year.
Group revenue was AED24.7 billion (US$6.7 billion) for the first six months of this year, up 81 percent from AED13.7 billion ($3.7 billion) during the same period last year.
This strong revenue recovery was underpinned by the easing of travel restrictions worldwide and the corresponding increase in demand for air transport as countries progressed their COVID-19 vaccination programmes.
The Group also reported an EBITDA of AED5.6 billion ($1.5 billion), illustrating its strong return to operating profitability.
H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline and Group, said, “As we began our 2021-22 financial year, COVID-19 vaccination programmes were being rolled out at unprecedented scale around the world. Across the Group, we saw operations and demand pick up as countries started to ease travel restrictions. This momentum accelerated over the summer and continues to grow steadily into the winter season and beyond.
“Our cargo transport and handling businesses continued to perform strongly, providing the bedrock upon which we were able to quickly reinstate passenger services. While there’s still some way to go before we restore our operations to pre-pandemic levels and return to profitability, we are well on the recovery path with healthy revenue and a solid cash balance at the end of our first half of 2021-22.”
Sheikh Ahmed also thanked the customers for their continued support, as well as all the aviation and travel industry stakeholders and partners for their efforts that have made it possible for international air travel to resume safely and smoothly.
“Our ability to pivot and pull through the toughest period in our history to date, can be attributed to Emirates’ and dnata’s strong brands, high quality products and services, digital and innovation capabilities, and our amazing people. We intend to continue investing in these core areas to take our business into the future, together with the leaner processes and new technology capabilities that we’ve implemented in the past months,” Sheikh Ahmed added.
Source: Emirates News Agency