(MENAFN- Qatar Foundation ) In Qatar, we have always believed that people are precious, and investing in our people is the most important investment we can make. Everything begins and ends with our people. When our people are healthy and leading full, rounded lives, then our nation is well. When our people’s health deteriorates, then the nation is weakened with them.
And so, we built our ideas and projects, and chief among them, Qatar’s National Vision, on the concept of human development. The wellbeing of the nation is built on the wellbeing of the individual. We laid the foundations of our health sector to support our needs and aspirations.
Over the past decades, we have worked on promoting understanding of precision health and its benefits both for society and the individual, including raising public awareness.
In the past, a one-size-fits-all approach was commonly adopted in treating cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other diseases. But research shows that patients’ genetic make-up, environment, and lifestyle factors, can affect the intensity of their condition and the way they respond to various treatments. Understanding this allows us to create new, precise preventative methods.
However, precision health is not a commodity that countries can buy or import and then provide to patients in their hospitals. In addition to financial investment, successful implementation of precision health requires the development of advanced technologies and infrastructure, which allows us to accurately map genetic profiles not only of individuals, but also of entire populations, and then to compare them to those of other populations around the world.
Precision health also requires expanding the capabilities of the workforce by adding new skills and establishing an innovative, integrated, and interconnected system in the healthcare sector: one where doctors, bioethicists, decision makers, legal experts, and medical authorities collaborate and work closely with people in the community.
Our scientists’ contributions have received a great deal of attention. Their highly influential studies have been published in some of the world’s most renowned academic journals. Our scientists participate in important international studies, networks, and collaborations that have led to many new discoveries and innovative breakthroughs.
None of this would be possible without the dedication and excellence of our scientists and doctors, and the integrated system we have built together. These efforts culminated in Qatar recently joining the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, solidifying our leading global role in genomics and affirming our active participation in mapping the Arab genome in the international arena and our efforts to remedy the under-representation of the Arab genome in international genomic data banks.
Qatar is participating in working towards resolving this challenge with its own genome project, and has sequenced the genomes of more than 10 percent of its citizens. We were also the first Arab contributors to the World Consortium for Biobanking Meta-Analysis “COVID-19 Host Genome Initiative”. Researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, the Ministry of Public Health, and Hamad Medical Corporation were at the forefront of assessing and comparing vaccine efficacy, making significant contributions to combating COVID-19.
In Qatar, we dreamt of the future, and we believed in the promise of precision health. We put a comprehensive and methodical plan in place to satisfy all its requirements, starting from building modern facilities for genome sequencing at Sidra Medicine, moving on to creating an advanced biobank in collaboration with Hamad Medical Corporation and the Ministry of Health, and even initiating a dialogue on Islamic ethics in genomics and precision medicine, under the supervision of our scholars in the College of Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University.
With Qatar University and Hamad Bin Khalifa University launching innovative and dynamic Masters and PhD programs to train the next generation of scientists, doctors, technicians, and consultants in genetics, we are certain that we will have the skills and labor force required not only to implement our precision health program and develop our healthcare sector, but also to respond rapidly to potential challenges and translate our new discoveries and opportunities into treatments that can improve healthcare and quality of life for all Qatar’s residents.
Today, I invite everyone to participate in this project, which heralds a revolution in Qatar’s healthcare. This national project will serve not only Qatar and the region, but all of humanity.
I am proud that we are leading the region in the field of precision health. And I am happy to announce the official launch of Qatar Precision Health Institute, which has already been operating silently for many years as the umbrella of related institutions, creating an endless horizon for a healthier society, as envisioned in the Qatar National Vision 2030.
Here, I especially thank Asma Al-Thani for her outstanding leadership these past years and for laying the groundwork for this institute.
I thank all who have contributed to the development of this field, and I thank all of you here today.
I wish you all good health.
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