Qatar University (QU) The Qatar Health 2022 and the 2nd Qatar Public Health Conference was virtually hosted in Qatar from 9-12 February 2022 as a product of a partnership between Hamad Medical Corporation and the Ministry of Public Health in preparation for the FIFA World Cup 2022.
The theme of the conference was “Preparing for the 2022 World Cup and the Response to Pandemics in Qatar – a multidisciplinary team approach”. It included numerous sessions to emphasize Qatar’s focus on preparations for providing quality care during mass gatherings and a pandemic response through a multidisciplinary team approach, with the addition of lessons learned and best practices.
Over the three-day program of the event, local and international experts presented over 75 posters of state-of-the-art topics. Out of the many, a research team constituting a collaboration between the Qatar University College of Pharmacy of (QU-CPH) and Monash University, Australia, won first place in the best poster award for the research “Cost-Effectiveness of Non-Statin Lipid-Modifying Agents for Primary and Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease among Patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus”.
The QU-CPH team constituted Dr. Daoud Al-Badriyeh, QU-CPH Associate Professor of Health Economics and Outcomes Research, working with Ms. Dina Abushanab, MPharm, an alumnus of QU-CPH, and the QU-CPH Teaching Assistant, Ms. Myriam Eljaam, MPharm.
Dr. Ousama Rachid, QU-CPH Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences working with seven alumni of the QU-CPH including Ms. Sarra Benammar who presented the work, and in collaboration with the Ambulance Service of Hamad Medical Corporation (HMCAS) won both first and second places in the best oral presentation awards.
Their research was titled “Intravenous fluids in hot pre-hospital environments: thermal and physical stability of normal saline after exposure to simulated stress conditions” and “Monitoring temperature and humidity in ambulance service rapid-response vehicles and paramedics medication bags: a pilot study”, respectively. As a project leader, Dr. Rachid and his team have been working closely with the HMCAS to investigate and characterize the environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity that may have an impact on the quality of the medications used in out-of-hospital Emergency Medical Settings (EMS), including ambulance vehicles in the field scenes. This is especially important in countries of hot and arid climate such as Qatar and the GCC region, where temperature may rise above 50°C and humidity may reach over 70%.
Commenting on this achievement Dr. Rachid said: “The data presented in the awarded two studies in the conference will help in the understanding of the patterns of temperature and humidity variations throughout the four seasons and their impact on the integrity and stability of life-saving medications used in EMS. This project is believed to direct the development of new guidelines of storage, shipping, and handling of medications within the operations of the Ambulance Service in Qatar and similar countries of hot climate.”
Source: QATAR UNIVERSITY