Expat's medical screening in home countries successful

The initiative to carry out Medical check-up for expatriate workers in their home countries has been proved successful, according to Health Ministry officials.

Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health for Health Policies Dr. Mahmoud Fikri revealed at a recent meeting that UAE’s experiment

to screen foreign workers in their home countries has proved to be successful by reducing the rates of cases detected positive for certain diseases by half.

The decision of the Ministry of Health, for screening exptriate workers for contagious diseases in their home countries before they are granted work visas, had come into force since 1^st October 2011.

People from Indonesia and Sri Lanka were first affected under the new guidelines, to be introduced in phases on expats from certain other countries.

The initial evaluation of the experiment during the last six months proved that the results are excellent, Dr. Fikri told a meeting held to discuss the mechanism of the application and means of coordination with stakeholders both at home and abroad.

“The results of tests revealed that about 50 percent of the total number of persons screened in their home countries had tested positive for infectious diseases, particularly for Tuberculosis”, noted Dr. Fikri.

This move helps to avoid the situation of the workers coming into the UAE and undergoing medical check-up in the country, and later returning to their home countries once they are proved unfit for work, noted Dr. Fikri.

He said he was preparing a mechanism to achieve electronic connectivity between all stakeholders such as offices and testing centers in the countries of origin and the Executive Office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and the Ministry of Health in the UAE.