Ambassador hails UAE collaboration with Germany on coronavirus testing

Hafsa Al Ulama, the UAE Ambassador to Germany, has said both countries have stressed the importance of testing to combat Covid-19

Hafsa Al Ulama, UAE Ambassador to Germany. Courtesy MOFAIC
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Early medical collaboration between Germany and the UAE at the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic played an important role in shaping the countries’ responses to the disease, the ambassador to Germany has said.

Hafsa Al Ulama, the UAE Ambassador in Berlin, told The National both Germany and the UAE had worked closely on their response to the global pandemic, concentrating on the importance of testing to combat the novel coronavirus.

“There has been a lot of information that we provide to the German side and the German side also sends us information about what they are doing and the best practices,” the ambassador explained.

“The main key area in Germany that they keep focusing on is that we need to do a lot of tests,” she said. “In the absence of doing the tests you really don't know what to exclude. Tests are very important.”

Both the UAE and Germany are far above international averages when it comes to the pace and scale at which they have undertaken coronavirus testing.

Germany and UAE testing in tandem for Covid-19

Germany and UAE testing in tandem for Covid-19

The UAE has conducted over 220,000 Covid-19 tests, according to the Ministry of Health and Prevention. The figure makes the UAE by far and away the world leader in the number of total tests per capita.

The Emirates is also setting up drive-through testing centres throughout the country. 

A lab has also been set up in Masdar City capable of testing tens of thousands of Covid-19 patients every day. The facility, the first of its kind outside China, will dramatically speed up diagnosis of the disease.

German laboratories have reached a testing rate of more than 50,000 tests per day. The total number of tests carried out in Germany is 918,460 according to the Robert Koch Institute which is leading the country’s coronavirus response.

The high levels of German testing contrast starkly with other European nations and have allowed Berlin to more closely track the rate of infection.

 

The expansive testing programme in the country is also one of the reasons Germany’s mortality rate is so much lower than elsewhere in Europe, now the epicentre of the global coronavirus crisis.

Ms Al Ulama explained that the UAE's Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed held early calls with his German counterpart Heiko Maas at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak.

“When really it was spreading very fast, they had discussions on working together and exchanging notes to compare different practices,” she explained.

As with South Korea before them, both the UAE and Germany have found that testing has shown a path out of the public health emergency. “Once they know the numbers, they know how to handle the issues much faster,” the ambassador said.

In the face of the coronavirus crisis, the UAE embassy in Berlin has been working round the clock to safeguard UAE citizens still in Germany.

There were more than 400 UAE nationals in in Germany at the beginning of the month, many of them patients. Three quarters were taken home before the government suspended all inbound, outbound and transit passenger flights in March.

Those who remain are mostly patients who are too sick to travel. “That number is still here because we have a lot of patients and their families who are here and cannot travel. It is not possible for them to make a move so they are under care here in Germany,” the ambassador explained.

Among those who remain are also medical students who have stayed behind to learn in the crisis and those embassy and government workers who are supporting Emiratis still in Germany.

“This is a crisis situation so everyone has been working even harder,” the ambassador explained. “You have to have teamwork and team spirit. I am very pleased and very proud of that team that has been working here,” Ms Al Ulama explained.