New diabetes academy for the capital

ABU DHABI // A diabetes academy will open this year and "help transform our national and regional approach" to the disease, the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research announced yesterday.

Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak said the facility would focus on identifying those at risk and making new drugs available sooner.

"It will promote healthy living and educate and encourage people to take responsibility for their own health," he said at the International Conference on Drug Discovery and Therapy at Dubai Women's College.

About one in four Emiratis suffers from the disease, the second-highest rate in the world, says the World Health Organisation, after the South Pacific island of Nauru.

The facility will open in the capital at the Centre of Excellence for Applied Research and Training, the commercial arm of the Higher Colleges of Technology. The academy plans to research areas such as diabetic nerve damage, kidney disease and eye damage.

It is one of a growing number of centres dedicated to the disease. The Imperial College London Diabetes Centre opened in the capital in 2006 and has 27,000 patients.

Timothy Fisher, consultant foot surgeon at the Rashid Centre for Diabetes and Research in Sheikh Khalifa Hospital, Ajman, said the challenge to institutions was not to do too much, too soon. "They need to realise that diabetes has so many different faces," he said.