04/21/2008 By Nina Muslim, Staff Reporter Gulf News
Dubai: The UAE has added blood-borne disease hepatitis C to the list of deportable diseases, which includes HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis B, effective July 1.
The Cabinet recently approved including the new test for expatriates applying for residency and labour visas. The decision applies to the Health Ministry, and the health authorities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Dr Ali Al Marzouqi, Director of General and Public Health at Dubai Health Authority, told Gulf News he received the circular announcing the decision last week.
"It's for everyone - for new and renewing of visas. Anyone who tests positive for hepatitis C virus [HCV] will be deported," he said.
Dr Mahmoud Fikree, CEO of Health Policies at the Health Ministry, told Gulf News a technical committee was working on how to implement the decision. "When we have the whole package, we will announce it," he said.
The thalassaemia community and activists are worried how the final decision would affect some of their numbers.
People with thalassaemia, a genetic blood disorder, require frequent blood transfusions to survive. Some patients in the UAE were infected with HCV, which causes severe liver damage and failure, spread through tainted blood supplies and needles.
The UAE started screening blood supplies for the virus in 1992, in accordance with World Health Organisation recommendations.
Saeed Jafar Al Awadi, a board member of the Emirates Thalassaemia Society (ETS) and thalassaemia patient, told Gulf News thalassaemia patients should be exempted from the requirement.
"They cannot [take] the decision for thalassaemia patients with HCV. It is unfair because they only have the disease through our mistake. They never had the disease until they came here," he said, adding his brother was infected through tainted blood supplies.
ETS said it supports 25 expatriate patients with HCV. Actual figures for HCV in the UAE are scant as no study on the disease's prevalence has been done.
Al Awadi said anyone who contracted the virus while in the UAE, such as accident victims or patients who received tainted blood, should not be deported.
