Babies born in the UAE will be tested for critically congenital heart disease.
In the UAE, newborns will be diagnosed with congenital heart disease. According to senior officials, the system will be fully implemented until July 15.
The verification procedure will take only three minutes and will be carried out within 24 hours after the birth of the baby. This measure will be crucial to reduce infant mortality and morbidity in children with heart disease. In the long run, the new system will alleviate the financial, social and psychological burden for parents due to the extremely high costs of heart surgery.
The new technology is called Eve. The UAE Ministry of Health has equipped nine hospitals in five emirates with appropriate equipment. It is worth noting that the Eve technology on the Rad-97 Pulse CO-Oximeters from MASIMO will be used for the first time in the world for large-scale diagnostics.
Dr. Kalfum Mohammed, head of the hospital’s inpatient department, said it’s difficult to talk about any statistics.
"It is too early to talk about any figures, even if the disease is detected at a later stage, the data will not go to the ministry," the doctor said, adding that clarity will appear in six months.
Each hospital was equipped with a new generation pulse oximeter to detect cardiac abnormalities. In addition, a new intelligent application was developed to help record information about children with congenital heart defects, which will create a database of patients. The medical staff also received appropriate training.
For the first time, the system was tested by Dr. Yusif Mohammed Al Serkal, deputy head of the medical department. According to him, the "program for diagnosing heart disease in infants" is aimed at checking all newborns in the UAE, children who will have abnormalities will undergo appropriate confirmatory tests, will receive the necessary advice and treatment.
