Qatar’s healthcare partners recently hosted the first Qatar Infectious Disease Conference at the Itqan Clinical Simulation and Innovation Center and Fairmont Doha Hotel to highlight the importance of infectious diseases and their impact on our health and lives.

Participants, including renowned international and local speakers, shared the latest and cutting-edge developments in infectious diseases and other key areas related to diseases caused by infectious agents. Different topics of interest to a wide range of health professionals were also discussed at the conference.

Infectious diseases

Conference chairman and Infectious Disease Head at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) Dr Abdullatif Al Khal together with co-chair, Dr Muna Al Maslamani, Communicable Disease Center’s Medical Director and Assistant Head of Infectious Disease, observed that the world has witnessed a gradual but steady decline in deaths from infectious diseases over the last 30 years, thanks to improvements in sanitation, nutrition, standards of living, education, public health and preventive measures, immunisations, diagnostics, and advances in medical treatment.

According to Dr Al Khal, it is estimated that the global death rates from infectious agents had declined from 232 deaths per 100,000 population in 1990 to 105 in 2019. Despite these reassuring figures, infectious diseases remain a major source of morbidity and mortality and are among the top 10 killer diseases of mankind.

He said that the success achieved over the last three decades has somewhat been disrupted by the recent emergence of the highly deadly COVID-19 pandemic which has contributed to the demise of more than 15 million lives around the world, whether directly or indirectly, not to mention the interruption it caused to childhood immunisation, TB and HIV control programmes.

In addition to emerging and reemerging infectious diseases in different parts of the world, Dr Al Khal said there are other manmade problems that are hampering the fight against infectious agents.

Dr Al Khal urged for optimism and the need to fight back against infectious agents and build on the success achieved over the last few decades.

We, as clinicians specialising in preventing and treating infectious diseases, play a key role in leading this fight.

Communicable Disease Center’s Medical Director and Assistant Head of Infectious Disease, Dr Muna Al Maslamani added that the conference aimed to transform the way healthcare practitioners clinically operate to continuously improve their ability to be part of the scientific evidence, share and exchange experiences with colleagues and strengthen the clinical outcomes for better patient care.

Check out Marhaba’s FREE e-Guides for everything you need to know about Qatar.