NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : THE NATIONAL/WAM
National airlines to begin swine flu campaign
U.A.E - JULY 06: Air passengers will be given pamphlets telling them how they can avoid swine flu and prevent its spread, the Ministry of Health said yesterday.
More than 50,000 pamphlets will be put in the seat pockets of all UAE domestic aircraft.
The pamphlet, distributed by the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Dubai Health Authority, will be written in Arabic and English.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that air travel has quickened the spread of the swine flu virus, H1N1, across the globe.
Fourteen people in the UAE have contracted swine flu so far, according to the MoH. Most caught the virus abroad. There have been no deaths.
A similar public awareness campaign is taking place in Sharjah, where tourism and health authorities are distributing pamphlets about swine flu to hotel guests.
The MoH said the pamphlet for air travellers would offer advice to passengers suffering flu-like symptoms. It says they should:
• notify an air hostess;
• cover their face with a tissue while sneezing or coughing;
• throw tissues away after use;
• wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water;
• refrain from touching, hugging, shaking hands or kissing;
• try to stay almost two metres away from other people, and visit a doctor.
The MoH said it had ordered enough anti-flu medication to treat everyone in the country. More antiviral drugs will arrive in September.
Thermal scanners have been installed at UAE airports to detect passengers who have higher than normal body temperatures.
Globally, almost 90,000 cases of swine flu and 382 deaths have been confirmed by the WHO.
Last month, UN health officials officially declared swine flu to be a pandemic, the first such outbreak in 40 years. So far, 74 countries have been affected.
Road safety mired in ignorance, doctors say
DUBAI - JULY 06: Dr Derrick Moore has been a physician for more than a decade. But it has been years since the Canadian has seen carnage like this.
“Last week there was an eight-year-old who was hit by a hit-and-run driver,” said Dr Moore, a trauma specialist. “Head injuries and comatose. He had to go on a ventilator.”
It is the sort of thing, he said, that proper safety regulations for drivers, passengers and people crossing the street have severely diminished in his home country.
In the UAE, though, the story is different – and deadlier.
In cars, “passengers haven’t been restrained [by seat belts], so they go into the windshield or the steering wheel or dash”, he said.
“In Canada, [patients] have aches and pains and lots of whiplash, and you send people home with pain medicines. Here ... it’s not a question of when will they go home, it’s a question of will they survive.”
The Rashid Hospital Trauma Centre, where Dr Moore works, is one of the largest in the Middle East, treating an average of a dozen patients every day who have been involved in some type of wreck on the emirate’s roads. One or two of them later die.
Doctors there said too few people buckle up and too many speed, contributing to what the World Health Organisation deemed some of the world’s most unsafe roads.
Dr Moore said he saw injuries here that were all but unheard of in other parts of the world.
“I have never seen people who have lower leg fractures on both legs,” he said. “These are pedestrians who have been hit by cars, which is almost non-existent in Canada. They also have severe head injuries.”
All victims of road crashes are taken to government hospitals such as Rashid. Of the victims the trauma centre sees, the majority have suffered injuries as a car driver or passenger, he said.
Mafraq Hospital in Abu Dhabi, which has one of the largest emergency rooms in the country, sees 30 to 40 car wreck cases each day. Four or five of those people die in the hospital.
Dr Jihad Awad, the head of the emergency room, said the most common type of patients were labourers injured in accidents as they were taken to and from construction sites on minibuses. Head and chest injuries, plus internal bleeding and fractures, are the most common injuries, he said.
“The worst thing we see is a patient who we can do nothing for,” Dr Awad said.
“Regardless of age or nationality, if we are unable to save the patient because his injuries are so serious, it is the worst thing. But it is worse for the families who are losing someone, not the patient himself.”
Many of the more horrific injuries involve people who were not wearing seat belts, Dr Moore said.
According to a study by UAE University in Al Ain, only 11 per cent of Emiratis and 44 per cent of expatriates wear seat belts.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says seat belts reduce the risk of death among front-seat passengers by between 40 and 65 per cent, and the risk of death for back-seat passengers by 25 and 75 per cent.
Dr Moore said wearing one can make the difference between life and death.
“It can also make the difference between someone having a complete recovery or being left with permanent disability,” he said. “They will keep someone inside a vehicle and limit the impact from someone’s head hitting a window, dashboard or, even worse, the person coming out the car.”
Dr Moore said crashes in the UAE were too preventable to truly be “accidents”.
“Most of them are predictable and inevitable,” he said. “If people speed, it is inevitable. If the roads are poorly designed or poorly marked, it is inevitable. If there is nowhere for people to cross the road safely, or no enforcement of the safety rules, it is inevitable.”
Dr Awad added that the mortality and injury rates can only be reduced through education.
“People also need to have respect: for themselves and for other road users. Only then will things change,” he said.
A little speed makes a big difference
ABU DHABI - JULY 06: When it comes to speed, a little caution can make a big difference.
Even a small increase in velocity – from 60kph to 70kph – can cause much more severe injuries in a crash, experts say.
“That’s the way physics works, and why you get such a big difference to potential impacts and the seriousness of the impacts by increased speeds,” said Simon Labbett, the regional director for the Transport Research Laboratory, which has its UAE office in Dubai.
For example, he said, if a pedestrian stepped in front of a car moving 60kph, the posted limit on many urban streets in the UAE, it would take that car about 36.5 metres to stop, assuming the driver’s reaction time was one second.
By comparison, a car moving at 70kph would still be going 42kph at the point the first car had stopped, he said.
“Would 42kph kill somebody? Absolutely,” he said. “You only started off with a difference of 10 kilometres.
“That’s why in urban crashes, speed has a dramatic effect to the injuries that could be sustained to pedestrians.”
A study published by the Department of Transport in London found that eight in 10 drivers and passengers die in head-on crashes when the impact speed is 90kph, compared with one in 10 when it drops to 70kph.
In side-impact crashes, eight in 10 people die when one car was travelling 70kph, a number that drops to one in 10 when the speed is 50 kph, said the study, The Relationship between Speed and Car Driver Injury Severity.
Even a 1kph reduction in speed would result in a two to three per cent reduction in road crashes, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has found.
In Abu Dhabi, where police have identified speed as the top cause of road traffic crashes, 138,919 drivers were caught speeding between January and April 1 this year. That represents 56 per cent of traffic violations.
When the WHO released its Global Status Report on Road Safety last month, the UAE’s roads were ranked among the most dangerous in the world.
Tami Toroyan, a technical officer with the organisation, has recommended that the UAE Government cut urban road speed limits to 50kph from 60kph.
Speed also is an urgent issue for pedestrians, whose chance of survival is 50 per cent when the car that hits them is travelling 45kph.
If the same car is driving 30kph, they have a 90 per cent chance of making it through an impact.
“We as drivers perhaps with wide roads, perhaps with our air-conditioned comfort cars, low noise, perhaps don’t perceive the speed we’re travelling at,” Mr Labbett said.
“The reality is that speed and speed limits are put there for good safety reasons, and it’s only when you actually look at these impact figures that you realise [their impact].
“Next time you’re walking down the road, you want people to be keeping to the speed limit, because the chances of you being killed or injured goes up dramatically as the speed increases.”
Waseen Iqbal, a senior lecturer and assessment examiner at the Emirates Driving Institute in Dubai, noted that other factors, including the physical and mental condition of the motorist and condition of their tyres, can affect stopping distances.
This is why it is important for drivers to follow speed limits and not get too close to vehicles ahead of them, Mr Iqbal said.
“They should concentrate on the speed according to the road situation,” he said. “If it is a very busy or city road, you can expect there are many hazards around you – you cannot go around 100 kph.”
A minimum of two seconds behind the next car is a safe following distance under ideal weather conditions, he said, which can be calculated using a fixed reference point.
In adverse weather, such as rain, he recommended a following distance of six seconds.
Ban on midday work benefits all
Ban on midday work benefits all
UAE - JULY 08:Companies that treat their labourers with care and respect are repaid with hard work, a UAE daily commented.
''Companies in Dubai are showing care and respect for their workers and the law by halting outdoor labour during midday, when the searing summer heat puts the health and welfare of employees at risk, according to an editorial published today by the Gulf News.
''Since the introduction of the law, the compliance of companies with the legislation has increased, and the number of heat exhaustion cases among workers has dropped, the paper noted.
''The government has taken steps to ensure that companies comply with the law.
This is necessary because even the best laws in the world are pointless unless they can be effectively enforced. Inspection teams have been formed and workers can also file anonymous complaints with the Ministry of Labour.
''Workers who are cared for by their companies often repay them with hard work and loyalty, essential for the success of a business,''the Gulf News concluded.
WAM