Dubai launches coronavirus home-testing to ease pressure on hospitals

Medical volunteers wait outside a drive-through COVID-19 coronavirus testing centre in Al Khawaneej district of Dubai on April 09, 2020. (AFP photo)
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Updated 25 April 2020
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Dubai launches coronavirus home-testing to ease pressure on hospitals

  • The MLU will ease the burden of overcrowding in hospitals amid the COVID-19 crisis, and will help protect high-risk people
  • The UAE on Friday recorded 525 new cases of coronavirus, bringing total to 9,281

DUBAI: The Dubai Corporation for Ambulance Services (DCAS) has launched the “Mobile Laboratory Unit” (MLU) that will allow home testing for the elderly and persons with disability, state-run WAM reported.

The MLU will ease the burden of overcrowding in hospitals amid the COVID-19 crisis, and will help protect high-risk people, the report said, adding the new testing unit is free of charge.

DCAS assured the MLU ambulance vehicles are equipped with auto-sterilization units, thermal scanners, and safe storage cabins for collected samples.

“The Dubai Corporation for Ambulance Services has successfully re-purposed ambulance vehicles to bring COVID-19 testing to the most vulnerable segments of society,” Talal Belhoul, the Commissioner-General for the Security and Justice Track at Dubai Council, said.

The UAE on Friday recorded 525 new cases of coronavirus, bringing total to 9,281. Eight new fatalities have been reported as well, taking death toll to 64.

The health ministry also said 123 new cases have recovered from virus in the country.


Thirty four Australians released from Syrian camp holding Daesh affiliated families

Updated 2 sec ago
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Thirty four Australians released from Syrian camp holding Daesh affiliated families

ROJ CAMP: Syrian Kurdish forces on Monday released 34 Australians from a camp ​holding families of suspected Daesh militants in northern Syria, saying they would be flown to Australia from Damascus.
Hukmiya Mohamed, a co-director of Roj camp, told Reuters that the ‌34 Australians ‌had been ​released ‌to ⁠members ​of their families ⁠who had come to Syria for the release. They were put on small buses for Damascus.
Roj camp holds more than 2,000 people from 40 ⁠different nationalities, the majority of ‌them women ‌and children.
Thousands of ​people believed ‌to be linked to Daesh militants have been held at Roj and a second camp, Al-Hol, since the militant group was driven ‌from its final territorial foothold in Syria in 2019.
Syrian ⁠government ⁠forces seized swathes of northern Syria from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in January, before agreeing a ceasefire on January 29.
The US military last week completed a mission to transfer 5,700 adult male Daesh detainees from Syria to ​Iraq.