The United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), has launched the UAE Global Health Institute, to address immediate health problems for the nation and the region.

The institute will be based at the UAEU campus in Al Ain.

The institute will be effective from today, drawing on partnerships with the best global health scholars from around the world, including the highly experienced research staff based at UAEU.

The initial areas of research will be epidemiology, ethnography, migrant health issues, epidemic disease and air transport and areas surrounding refugee health.

The primary partnership will be with the University of California System-wide Global Health Institute, which has become the global health research hub for the Americas. The wider international network will also draw on partnerships with Yale, Bergen, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur.

UAEU is developing the Europe–Africa network and expects to be able confirm additional partners in the coming months. The capabilities of the UAEU Institute for Integrated Information and Communications Technology will be leveraged, both for data management and for the creation of new technologies for diagnosis, decision-making and communications.

The output from the Institute will inform policy across the global medical profession and policy decisions across all other sectors affecting global health and the flow of disease, from the aviation sector through to conflict resolution and humanitarian work.

“The UAE is a vital hub in the global network and is therefore ideally suited to house this new global health institute. In addition to partnering with the leading centres of global health research around the world we will also recruit high quality talent from within the UAE. In collaborating with our partners and training national undergraduate and graduate students the UAE will become the world’s Global Health hub for the Middle East and Asia,” stated Dr Abdullah Al-Khanbashi, vice-chancellor of UAEU.-TradeArabia News Service