By Joseph Varghese/Staff Reporter

 

A World Health Organisation (WHO) team will visit Qatar soon to evaluate the preparedness against Ebola in the country, revealed a top official Supreme Council of Health (SCH) yesterday.

Speaking to Gulf Times, on the sidelines of the ‘We are Healthy’ programme, Dr Sheikh Mohamed bin Hamad al-Thani, director of Public Health at SCH said that Qatar is fully prepared to counter Ebola virus.

“There is a monitoring team at the airport to make sure that Qatar is free from the disease,” he stressed. The  official pointed out that the cases of Mers have significantly come down in the country as Qatar has taken effective measures against the disease.

“Qatar has taken all the precautions against Mers and the cases were very low in the country so far. This year there were only two cases of Mers in the country.”

Dr Sheikh Mohamed honoured the students and teachers of the schools who were part of the ‘We are Healthy’ programme at an event yesterday.

Speaking about the programme, Dr Sheikh Mohamed said that all the  primary schools are part of the programme and by next year, all  the intermediate schools will be included in the programme.

“All the students will have to undergo this course which lasts for 8 weeks. For every week, there is a different programme.This programme covers all the students.”

“The plan is to provide the knowledge for our children about different diseases as well as lifestyle and take adequate protection. So when they complete their school, they will have all the necessary tools to protect their health in their early ages and develop good habits.”

The official noted that according to the age of the students, there is a change in the programme. “Depending on the age of the students, the programmes change. In the earlier years, students are engaged on good eating habits and diabetes and so on. In higher classes, we are focusing on smoking, road traffic and HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases as well as different addictions.”

The official remarked that all the government schools are part of the programme. “We are communicating with the private schools and providing them the details of the programme to adopt it,” he added.

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