UAE amends law on communicable diseases

Dubai - New law will take effect in six months, after being published in the official gazette

The UAE cabinet has passed a resolution to amend the law on communicable diseases in the country.
The UAE council of ministers has issued resolution No (33) for 2016 regarding the executive bylaw of the federal law No (14) for 2014 on fighting the communicable diseases, which will take effect in six months, after being published in the official gazette.
Dr Amin Hussain Al Amiri, Assistant Undersecretary of Public Health Policies and Licensing of Ministry of Health and Prevention, said that the cabinet resolution includes (23) articles, which contain the definitions of the terms used and the ways to report such diseases, including those diseases that could be transmitted from animals.
Under the proposed law, the minister of health and prevention can amend any of the tables attached with the resolution as and whenever necessary, in coordination with the health bodies, subjected to that a decision on the amendment must be published in the official gazette.
The cabinet resolution also includes the measures that ought to be followed when any of the listed communicable diseases are discovered and how to fight it.
Furthermore, it includes the rights and duties of patients with communicable diseases; conditions on isolation and quarantine; procedures in dealing with the deaths and those arrive in the country with infections or suspected to be infected of such diseases.
The resolution has an appendix for the form used to report any communicable disease, level of isolation at hospitals, and a table on the very dangerous contagious diseases such as plague, the yellow fever, anthrax, Mad cow disease, Hepatitis type (B) & (C), HIV / Aids as well as some moderately hazardous diseases such as the avian flu, cholera, malaria, tuberculosis, measles, whooping cough and tetanus.
Dr Al Amiri stressed that the cabinet resolution highlights the country's strategy on promoting the levels of health services and the importance to update the health legislatives and revise them continuously in coordination with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
reporters@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE