DUBAI // Faheem Sultan’s daughter Shaheera was only five months old when her family noticed she was seriously unwell. She was not eating or growing properly and regularly fell ill with a fever.
They took her to Latifa Hospital in Dubai, where doctors diagnosed thalassaemia major, a serious blood disorder.
“Six months after Shaheera’s birth, the happiness we had changed into sorrow and the biggest fear,” her father said.
A bone-marrow transplant could cure Shaheera. Now a three-year-old, she requires monthly blood transfusions at the hospital’s thalassaemia centre and painful injections in her stomach every second day to control her iron levels, said Mr Sultan.
A transplant is not yet available in the UAE and like many expats, Mr Sultan, a Pakistani living in Sharjah who works for a contracting company in Dubai, cannot afford to pay the steep price of the operation in other countries and so must search for a cheaper option.
The family had arranged for treatment in Pakistan last year because the price was more affordable, but Mr Sultan said the quality was less reputable than in other countries. The transplant failed because the graft did not work properly, he said.
He now hopes to travel to Italy for the procedure, which he said would cost Dh1 million.
Thalassaemia is a group of inherited blood disorders that cause the body to make fewer healthy red-blood cells and less haemoglobin, a protein that carries oxygen throughout the body. They are among the most common inherited single-gene disorders in the world, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“The burden of this disorder in many regions is of such magnitude that it represents a major public-health concern,” WHO says.
It can cause an increased risk of infection, bone deformities, iron overload, heart problems, spleen enlargement and retarded growth rates.
Not all of those with thalassaemia can have transplants, said Shakila Bashir Ahmed, 32, who works in media and administration at the Emirates Thalassaemia Centre and had thalassaemia major diagnosed when she was six months old.
“The bone-marrow transplant is usually a very expensive procedure that not all the patients can undergo,” she said. “Some patients are viable for it and some are not.
“I guess the expats over here have a problem collecting funds for bone-marrow transplantation because the costs can go from Dh1m to Dh10m,” she said.
Thalassaemia can be difficult for the parents as well as young patients.
“The main struggle is from the beginning. If the parents take care and give the medicines properly in the beginning so the child will grow and develop normally without any different facial features or things like that,” Ms Ahmed said.
“Then, as an adult, some patients have trouble finding jobs. That’s something people don’t understand.”
Abdul Basit Merdas, the vice chairman of the Emirates Thalassaemia Centre, said the biggest challenge for expats was finding a donor who is a genetic match, rather than the expense. Close family members, preferably siblings, offer the best chance of a match.
The country has two thalassaemia centres, in Dubai and Fujairah, he said. The UAE’s bone-marrow registry is available only at the Sharjah Blood Transfusion and Research Centre, part of the Ministry of Health.
Potential donors can go to the centre and, if eligible, answer a questionnaire and sign a consent form after tissue-typing is carried out. The donor’s data is then available to hospitals worldwide. A bone-marrow transplant, however, has yet to be carried out in the UAE.
“The Ministry of Health in the UAE is looking forward to having a specialised bone-marrow transplantation centre,” Dr Mahra Al Marzouqi, director of the centre, has said.
Mr Sultan said his wife, Beenish Hassan, was a 100 per cent match.
He also thanked the Dubai Government for covering the expense of his daughter’s blood transfusions so far.
“People are very generous here,” he said. “As a father, I just want to give a normal life to my daughter.”
lcarroll@thenational.ae
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Cost: A minimum investment of $130,000 for a family of up to four, plus $25,000 in fees.
Criteria: Applicants must have a minimum net worth of $250,000. The process take six to eight weeks, after which the investor must travel to Vanuatu or Hong Kong to take the oath of allegiance. Citizenship and passport are normally provided on the same day.
Benefits: No tax, no restrictions on dual citizenship, no requirement to visit or reside to retain a passport. Visa-free access to 129 countries.
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