Dubai: The UAE health minister on Wednesday said international standards must be followed to prevent the spread of Aids.

Dr Hanif Hassan, Minister of Health, reviewed the Aids National Combat Report that will be raised for the first time to the UN's General Assembly in cooperation with various health authorities in the UAE.

He called on members of the meeting to follow the applicable international standards and prevent spread of Aids among the members of the society.

Hassan met Dr Mohammad Alam Al Deen, the UN Designated Technical Coordinator, to assist the member states on compiling their national reports about the disease and its infection rate as part of the report's national goals. He also listened to a brief explanation about the nature of the report and the steps they follow to achieve national goals and objectives.

Preparation

The national team includes members from health authorities in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Dubai Police, Ministry of Interior, Medical Services in the Armed Forces, Red Crescent and other concerned departments at the Ministry of Health.

In their meeting, the members discussed the preparation of the report in terms of fighting Aids and ways of eliminating it. The report was prepared in participation of health stakeholders in the UAE.

Dr Mahmoud Fikri, Executive Director for Health Policies at the Ministry of Health, said: "The UAE adopted a draft system for dealing with disease reported cases and the actions taken to achieve prevention and co-existence of close society members from getting affected."

"The UAE submits its periodic report every two years to the UN on a regular basis. The report covers the guidelines of the UN General Assembly in relation to fighting Aids," Dr Fikri said.

He added that the report includes the general indicators to assess national programmes of each country, referring to the fact that the UN advisor visited the UAE several times to learn about the report's development and other field trips to the concerned authorities to determine the implementation of national reports according to the instructions of the World Health Organisation .

The UN organises an exceptional meeting every two years in New York at the General Assembly to discuss each country's report and the global situation in fighting Aids.