May 31th, 2009: The Ministry of Health (MoH) plans to establish a facility for bone marrow transplantation in the country, a senior official from the ministry was quoted by a daily as saying. "There is no specialised facility in the (Middle East) region for bone marrow transplantation," CEO for Medical Practice and Licensing at MoH Dr Amin Hussain Al Amiri told Khaleej Times.. The official did not disclose the time frame and the location for the centre.

According to Dr Al Amiri, the UAE is the first Arab country to be a member of Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide (BMDW), and has helped more than eight patients from different countries in the region, four of which are from the UAE, in finding a match. The UAE is a member for more than four years BMDW is a voluntary collaborative effort to collect the HLA (human leukocyte antigen) phenotypes of stem cell donors and cord blood units and provide centralised information that are easily accessible to the physicians of patients in need of a hematopoietic stem cell transplant.

The participants for BMDW are 60 stem cell donor registries from 44 countries and 42 cord blood banks from 26 countries. As of April 28, BMDW has more than 13 million donors and cord blood units. In February this year, the MoH has signed an agreement with Florida Department of Health in the US to cooperate on medical research related to stem cells and umbilical-cord blood as well as on blood transfusion, blood banking, non-viral diseases and blood-carried diseases.