A kidney donated from an Israeli woman was flown on a charter flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi on Wednesday in the first organ transplant exchange of its kind.
Surgeons removed the kidney from Shani Markowitz Manshar, 39, at the Sheba Medical Centre, Tel HaShomer, before loading it into a chilled box packed in ice for the three-and-a-half-hour flight to Abu Dhabi.
As part of the same donation programme, a patient at Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, will receive a transplant from a donor in the UAE.
I hope this will open the door for further collaboration in other fields of medicine between our countries
Professor Eytan Mor,
Sheba Medical Centre
Professor Eytan Mor, head of the transplant centre in Sheba Medical Centre, said the surgery in Israel was a success.
“Today is the start of a wonderful collaboration with our colleagues from the Emirates and Abu Dhabi," he said.
“We discussed this potential collaboration in the area of organ transplantation six months ago with the Ministry of Health’s representative who visited us here in Tel Aviv.
“Within six months we have fulfilled the first organ exchange between Israel and Abu Dhabi.
“The kidney that we harvested has been shipped to Abu Dhabi.
“We started the procedure at 8am to accommodate the flight times so the kidney would not take too long in the cooler box.
“I hope this will open the door for further collaboration in other fields of medicine between our countries."
According to the National Transplant Centre, more than 1,000 Israeli adults and children are awaiting organ transplants.
Of those, about 700 need new kidneys, 150 livers and 70 lung transplants.
A further 120 people are on the waiting list for a heart transplant.
One of those recipients of a new kidney is the mother of Ms Manshar.
She is due to be admitted to Sheba Medical Centre later this week to receive a healthy organ from a relative of the donor who provided a kidney for the unnamed UAE patient.
The exchange is part of a wider organ donation programme between the two countries that will develop over the coming months.
An agreement has been signed between Sheba Medical Centre, the Department of Health Abu Dhabi and the Dubai Health Authority to promote medical tourism between Israel and the UAE.
Under that agreement, Sheba will offer treatment to 300 patients from the UAE’s security forces and a training programme for Emirati medics.
Despite growing numbers of registered organ donors in the emirates, demand continues to outpace supply of suitable organs for patients with serious health conditions.
To offer a fresh lifeline to patients waiting for a new liver, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi's multidisciplinary transplant team worked with colleagues at Cleveland Clinic in the US to introduce complex living related liver transplants.
It enables relatives to donate part of their liver to family members in need.
The programme has seen 22 patients access life-saving transplants without needing to wait for a compatible donor organ.
“The introduction of living related liver donation has been a huge boost to some of the country’s sickest patients,” said Dr Luis Campos, director of the liver transplant programme and head of hepatobiliary surgery at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.
“We are building on that success with the introduction of combined organ transplants that see patients receive two new organs in a single surgery.
“We are very proud to be among just a handful of centres in the world able to offer this highly complex level of care.
“It has the ability to completely transform a patient’s life, particularly when a pancreas transplant frees a patient from the need for daily insulin injections.”
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The winners
Fiction
- ‘Amreekiya’ by Lena Mahmoud
- ‘As Good As True’ by Cheryl Reid
The Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Award
- ‘Syrian and Lebanese Patricios in Sao Paulo’ by Oswaldo Truzzi; translated by Ramon J Stern
- ‘The Sound of Listening’ by Philip Metres
The George Ellenbogen Poetry Award
- ‘Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance’ by Fady Joudah
Children/Young Adult
- ‘I’ve Loved You Since Forever’ by Hoda Kotb
6 UNDERGROUND
Director: Michael Bay
Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Adria Arjona, Dave Franco
2.5 / 5 stars
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
MATCH INFO
Tottenham 4 (Alli 51', Kane 50', 77'. Aurier 73')
Olympiakos 2 (El-Arabi 06', Semedo')
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Skoda Superb Specs
Engine: 2-litre TSI petrol
Power: 190hp
Torque: 320Nm
Price: From Dh147,000
Available: Now
The Ashes
Results
First Test, Brisbane: Australia won by 10 wickets
Second Test, Adelaide: Australia won by 120 runs
Third Test, Perth: Australia won by an innings and 41 runs
Fourth Test: Melbourne: Drawn
Fifth Test: Australia won by an innings and 123 runs
Defence review at a glance
• Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 but given “turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster”
• Prioritise a shift towards working with AI and autonomous systems
• Invest in the resilience of military space systems.
• Number of active reserves should be increased by 20%
• More F-35 fighter jets required in the next decade
• New “hybrid Navy” with AUKUS submarines and autonomous vessels
