Faced with the pandemic, Dubai is spreading its scientific advances - France 24

Dubai (AFP)

Research laboratories, state-of-the-art equipment, mobile applications: the Covid-19 pandemic is an opportunity for Dubai to display its dazzling technological and scientific development and to present itself as a model in the management of the crisis.

In Healthcare City (literally, the "city of health care"), a brand new neighborhood erected in 2002, a battalion of young scientists is active in front of screens of the Mohammed Ben Rachid Al Maktoum University of Medicine, the Emir and strong man from Dubai whose portrait sits on the pediment of the building.

The establishment houses the Command and Control Center against Covid-19, a multidisciplinary body established at the beginning of the crisis by Hamdane ben Mohammed, young crown prince of the emirate and star of social networks. The goal: to coordinate the efforts of managers, doctors, epidemiologists and other professionals in the field.

"For several years, Dubai has strived to put in place solid digital infrastructures and this has helped to fight against the coronavirus," assures AFP Amer Sharif, who supervises the center.

With its most diversified economy in the Middle East, its modern infrastructure and its taste for consumption, Dubai has become in recent years an air hub, a financial center, a tourist destination and an ultra-connected city.

The United Arab Emirates, which has performed more than 1.6 million tests across the country, has officially registered nearly 29,000 cases of infection, including more than 14,000 healings and 244 deaths.

Dr. Sharif says technology has made containment easier and prevented further spread of the disease through distance education and work, home delivery via apps, and most importantly, "full system scanning health".

- "Respect for privacy" -

A rich Gulf country and a key geopolitical player, the Emirates, of which Dubai is the most famous of the seven members, have great technological and scientific ambitions.

Among other exploits, the country, after having sent an astronaut to space last year, will launch in July the first Arab probe in the direction of Mars, a project sponsored by the emir of Dubai.

Since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, the Emirates have regularly published the progress made in their research to find a treatment and have developed several applications, including "Alhosn", which allows the tracking of infected people.

At the time of the night curfew, the inhabitants of Dubai also receive a text in Arabic, English or even Hindi, in an emirate where approximately 90% of the population is foreign.

Police wear smart helmets that take the temperature of passers-by, and laboratories make protective masks using 3D printers.

The use of technology to fight the pandemic, however, has raised concerns around the world due to the risk of governments monitoring and breaching people's personal data.

And the Emirates, where certain foreign sites and applications remain blocked, have already been pinned on this subject by the press and experts.

"Dubai and the Emirates respect privacy, whether it's patient records or smart apps," said Amer Sharif.

- "Opportunity" -

According to him, the authorities are inspired by other countries, in particular South Korea, set up as an example in the management of the crisis, but Dubai is also developing its "own model".

"We must follow developments, support them but also bring them a plus," he emphasizes.

This task rests in particular on the shoulders of Professor of Medicine Alawi Al-Sheikh Ali, who heads the scientific team of the Dubai Command Center.

"The role of this team is to be abreast of the latest advances in research and scientific evidence both in the country and elsewhere in the world," said the academic to AFP, so that "all measures are taken based on a scientific methodology ".

For Tom Loney, professor of public health and epidemiology at Mohammed ben Rachid University and advisor to the authorities, the coronavirus crisis has been an "opportunity" for Dubai to test its ambitions.

The emirate is thus "able to relax restrictions and resume a certain economic activity (...) thanks to epidemiological data", underlines this British expatriate, the rapid detection and regular updating of cases of infection being enabled by a "significant investment in testing".

Dubai was also distinguished, according to him, by a "capacity to take rapid decisions on the database and science", on the orders of sheikh Mohammed ben Rached Al Maktoum, the strong man of the emirate.

© 2020 AFP