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UAE to introduce Anti-Doping Law

Speaking at the Arab Health Exhibition and Conference which concludes tomorrow, Owais said that the UAE is a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Code, an internationally accepted framework for regulating illegal use of performance enhancing drugs in sport, which is expected to be ratified in the next few months before the January 1, 2009 deadline.

MoU signed

Dubai Biotechnology and Research Park (DuBiotech), the Government Authority for Youth and Social Welfare, and the UAE National Olympic Committee yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to launch the Gulf Anti-doping and Monitoring Enterprise (GAME).

New entity

The new entity, the first of its kind in the region, will be a subsidiary of DuBiotech and will be dedicated to conducting anti-doping testing for all professional and amateur athletes in the UAE.

Few cases

“Our athletes are clean and there only are a few cases of drug use. Several countries in the world have adopted testing procedures, but in the UAE, we don’t have dedicated laboratories,” he explained.

“All test samples taken from athletes till now are being sent to Tunisia or Malaysia; therefore, a local laboratory was much needed,” Al Owais pointed out.

GAME will work towards obtaining an ISO 17025 certification within a year. After this, it aims to get an accreditation from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), an independent international organisation that implements the World Anti-Doping Code.

No similar lab

“There is no similar laboratory in the GCC and there are only 32 WADA-accredited laboratories around the world,” he said.

The laboratory at DuBiotech aims to be one of only three WADA laboratories that currently conduct blood sampling, in addition to the traditional urine testing.

Testing centre

“It will also serve as a blood and gene doping testing centre, with additional testing for Erythropoietin (EPO), and human growth hormone (Hgh).

Doping methods

“These doping methods are increasingly being utilised in modern sport,” said Abdulqader Alkhayat, executive director, DuBiotech.

Ibrahim Abdul Malik, secretary-general of the UAE National Olympic Committee, said, “The establishment of GAME at the start of the year is the first step towards a national doping control system. This is an important development in the country’s sport.

“We are also optimistic that it will help enhance the international reputation of the UAE’s sporting bodies.”

Research

“In addition to doping analysis, GAME will also conduct research on new analytical techniques and will strive to improve existing ones, in affiliation with the WADA research programmes,” he said.

To be fully operational by end of 2008, GAME will be based in DuBiotech’s Nucleotide Complex, the region’s first dedicated modern laboratory compound which will also house a pre-clinical vivarium, a pioneering laboratory for animal testing.

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