RIYADH: Saudi Arabia and Finland have stepped up joint efforts in infection prevention by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU).
The signing ceremony took place at the Finnish Embassy in Riyadh on Wednesday.
Knowledge-exchange links are being built on Saudi Arabia’s vast patient safety experience among mass gatherings and infection control.
Four major hospitals in the Kingdom have already agreed to adopt groundbreaking concepts on IHMEC (indoor hygiene solutions to the Middle East construction market) as a result of a growing partnership in recent years.
Indoor hygiene is a new solution for preventing and controlling infections.
Al-Dawaa Medical Services Company and the University of Turku and Satakunta University of Applied Sciences in Finland signed the new MoU to promote knowledge-transfer partnerships.
The agreement will strengthen scientific relations in the field of infection prevention, including scientific support in applying indoor hygiene solutions.
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The Ambassador of Finland, Antti Rytovuori, also honored four Saudi scientists on behalf of the Finnish universities for their contribution in transferring knowledge in public health safety and infection prevention.
Al-Dawaa Business Development Director Fahad Al-Farrah said: “During 2020, we realized the importance of innovative solutions and international collaboration to assist in tackling any future pandemic. Al-Dawaa Medical Services Company sees this initiative as a national mission.”
Saudi Arabia this year became the first global partner to implement the IHMEC concept countrywide outside of Finland when Al-Dawaa Medical Services began introducing IHMEC concepts in the Kingdom.
Since the signing of an MoU between the Saudi and Finnish health ministries in 2017, the IHMEC project has become a key part of a growing knowledge-transfer partnership between the two nations.
This IHMEC project is based on cooperation between researchers and companies from Finland, Sweden and Estonia to provide innovative materials and design concepts to break the infection chain.
In 2019, Finnish institutions presented innovative indoor hygiene concepts at the Jeddah Patient Safety Summit at the invitation of the Ministry of Health.
A delegation of 50 healthcare and industrial experts from 22 Saudi institutions also visited Helsinki in 2019.
