• Home
• /
• UAE

UAE: Genome testing can now be done at home for Dh999

Emirates Post, Dante Labs tie up to deliver testing kits at residents' doorsteps

Now you can get genome testing kits delivered to your doorstep in the UAE. And it costs just Dh999.

Thanks to a collaboration between Emirates Post and Dante Labs, a global leader in genomics and precision medicine, these kits, much like PCR testing packets, will be available to order from next week.

The partnership between Empost and Dante follows the launch of Dante Genomics’ operations in the UAE. The service provides genomic information in Arabic for the first time through the cost-effective advanced genomic services that can screen one’s health, wellness, longevity, nutrition, nutrigenomics, and fitness, apart from diagnosing emerging diseases.

This service will be available at 10 different main post offices across all the seven emirates in the UAE.

Genetic testing provides personalised information about one’s overall well-being to empower people to live a healthier lifestyle.

Emirates Post will collect and drop off testing kits from Dante Labs to customers across the UAE, in addition to designating Emirates Post Customer Happiness Centres as a point of sale and drop off/collection point for the testing kits.

Andrea Riposati Group CEO of Dante Genomics, says: “Thanks to the partnership with Emirates Post, today, ‘accessible’ means we can deliver it to people everywhere because Emirates Post has universal reach in the country."

“Steve Jobs, years ago, paid $100,000 to sequence his genome. Until a few years ago, and even today it still can cost $5,000-10,000. So, we decided on affordable price of Dh999 in partnership with Emirates Post.”

Riposati added, “Knowing about your genetic makeup is power. This knowledge is important to change your daily life, to personalise your nutrition and physical activity to live a longer, healthier life. It’s important also, if in case you get sick and you go to the hospital, you need to take a medication, to eliminate medications that can cause an adverse reaction and it’ll also help one’s doctor to choose the right medication and therapy.”

Genome testing kits help detect how one reacts to medication, food, physical activities and viruses, and play an important role in well-being and preventive healthcare.

The purple-coloured, low-cost kit allows self-collection with easy-to-follow instructions in four simple steps, accelerating science to save lives.

“We’ve created it in a way so that’s it’s easy to use. It’s a Saliva Collection Kit, which means that people collect the saliva. Then there is a reagent in the tube that conserves the saliva for up to 18 months, and then we use Emirates Post to ship it to our Clinical Sequencing Centre here in Dubai. It doesn’t require a nurse or a doctor and it doesn’t require collecting any blood sample. It’s very simple to use and it can be a self-sample collection. At the sequencing centre, once the sample arrives, we extract the DNA from the saliva and then we sequence the DNA to generate and provide huge amount of data to create the reports for the first time in Arabic… It’s a universal solution for one’s entire health and wellness. For some people, its genomics for medical issues like diabetes, or cardiovascular diseases that are very prominent today in UAE.”

Peter Somers, CEO of Emirates Post, says: “Many people know that we are a logistics company and what we do is we deliver things to any resident’s house or to the office to the companies. We also have collection options in our branches in poodle service point network that we’re building gradually. So, kits provided by Dante labs could be purchased and collected from our branches and we can even deliver these kits to the houses.

“So, we are the logistics arm of Dante labs in the UAE and that’s what the partnership is all about. Therefore, this collaboration highlights the seamless services we provide to customers through our delivery network, which is the largest in the country.”

Riposati said their mission is to make genomics accessible to everyone, with the best technology in the healthcare industry to provide personalized preventive healthcare solutions by offering next-generation diagnostic tools direct to consumers and healthcare professionals,

Riposati said: “In a few years every baby’s genome sequence will be gathered by doctors at birth, and this will lead to personalized health and wellness care so that the person can live a longer and happier life.”

ALSO READ:

• UAE launches new health insurance service to enhance patient experience

• UAE: Healthcare is going to drive next decade of growth, say experts