In coordination with the Advanced Technology Research Council, DoH supports scientific research to help fight COVID-19 pandemic

The Department of Health—Abu Dhabi (DoH), in coordination with the Advanced Technology Research Council have launched a unified platform to support R&D efforts in the fight against COVID-19, facilitating scientific discoveries to tackle the virus.

The new platform, called the National Registry for COVID-19 is now available at DoH's website dedicated to provide real-time updates on COVID-19. It will also highlight the vital role scientific research plays in order to better understand the pandemic, the nature of the virus and how to fight it, as well as identify the best tools to treat and reduce the side-effects of COVID-19. 

The platform aims to collect all the research activities from across different sectors and concerned parties by encouraging further research and minimising duplication of data for efficiency. Through its unified digital platform, DoH will also archive all research related to the SARS-CoV-2, the strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, which may provide valuable insights into the virus as part of ongoing scientific research.

The platform, which is a result of the collaboration between DoH and the Abu Dhabi Public Health Centre, also helps as a source for a new feature that provides daily scientific reports including summaries of breakthroughs and updates on research about COVID-19. This allows healthcare professionals and public health officials to easily obtain information about the virus.  

Dr. Asma Al Mannaei, Director of Healthcare Quality Division at DoH said: "The modern world has never witnessed a pandemic like COVID-19. The health and well-being of individuals depends heavily on a global community of clinical researchers urgently coming together to find ways to apply their expertise and ideas, then translate them to successful applications and treatments. To that end, DoH has established the National Registry for COVID-19 that serves as a solid foundation for researchers and professionals working to combat the pandemic."

"We encourage all clinical researchers to upload their research proposals related to COVID-19 on the platform to boost rapid scientific discovery and innovation, in addition to helping defeat the virus and control the pandemic across the world." Al Mannaei added.

Dr. Shereena Al Mazrouei, Director of Health promotion at ADPHC stated that "the daily scientific report has as a special section for the research summaries issued from the Emirates in order to encourage researchers in carrying out research and publish it. In addition, the report provides data and analysis of the pandemic situation around the world".

"It become a must for health care professional and public health officials to keep themselves updated on all scientific update international and nationally as the science in this disease keep evolving rapidly. The scientific daily report provides a quick summary of breakthrough researches. In addition, it provides us with a daily snapshot on world covid19 data. This is a powerful tool to update for all research, public health professional and health officials. Many are finding it useful and we encourage everyone to read it, the scientific daily report publically available for everyone for free".  Al Mazrouei added.

DoH calls on all researchers and specialists across this field who have been working on research about COVID-19 to share their research proposals via the National Registry for COVID-19, now available on DoH's website.

DoH has developed the website in collaboration with the UAE-based applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) company, Saal. The website comprehensively showcases real-time updates on COVID-19 cases and has a bilingual chatbot that answers user queries, the first of its kind worldwide. The website also includes official news on COVID-19 as well as videos, facts, myths, and visual guides.

The COVID-19 website, can be visited through the following link: https://www.doh.gov.ae/en/covid-19.

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