London's Imperial College joins fight against diabetes in Al Ain
One out of five people aged 20 to 79 lives with the condition in UAE
Al Ain Keeping up the fight against diabetes, a major health problem in the UAE, the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre (ICLDC) Monday officially opened a state-of-the-art facility in Al Ain.
Offering world-class care for diabetes patients in Al Ain and the surrounding region, the centre reports that one out of five people aged 20 to 79 lives with this disease in the UAE.
A similar percentage of the population is also at risk of developing the ailment.
Dr Maha Taysir Barakat, the ICLDC's Medical and Research Director and Consultant Endocrinologist, said the UAE ranks tenth worldwide in the prevalence of diabetes per capita of the adult population, and recent figures from the International Diabetes Federation suggest that 19.2 per cent of the UAE's adult population are living with it, half of whom are unaware that they have it.
The centre, which is able to receive thousands of patients a month, was officially inaugurated by Shaikh Tahnoun Bin Mohammad Al Nahyan, the Ruler's Representative in the Eastern Region, at a ceremony at the centre located in the Tawam Hospital Complex.
Second facility
This is the second ICLDC facility as the Abu Dhabi centre has been operating since 2006 as a partnership venture between the Imperial College London and Mubadala Healthcare — a business unit of Mubadala Development Company. The Imperial College is a science-based institution that is consistently rated one of the world's best universities.
