JEDDAH — A Finnish researcher has said there are further opportunities for collaboration between Saudi Arabia and Finland, capitalizing on a memorandum of understanding signed in August 2017 by Saudi Minister of Health Tawfiq Al-Rabiah with his Finnish counterpart Pirkko Mattila in Riyadh.

The agreement opened a host of opportunities for cooperation in sharing knowledge and expertise in the health and construction sectors.

Dr. Riika Makinen of Satakunta University of Applied Sciences was invited by the Saudi Health Ministry to present the Indoor Hygiene Guidelines from Finland during the 4th Global Ministerial Patient Safety Summit in Jeddah on March 2-3.

Makinen stated, “The results of the cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Finland could have wide-reaching positive global effects when dealing with antibiotic-resistant microbes.”

To capitalize on the MOU, Dr. Makinen said there were further opportunities for collaboration.

One of the main collaboration areas was to bring together the best knowledge of infection prevention and control in mass gatherings of Saudi Arabia with the excellent health care system of Finland. A tangible result was the launching of the Indoor Hygiene Middle East Construction (IHMEC) project, which is supported by the European Union.

The project brings together relevant clusters from Finland, Sweden and Estonia into a meta-cluster, which aims to enter the Middle East construction market with new and tailor-made indoor hygiene solutions that fit the health care needs of the Kingdom.

IHMEC addresses the challenge of breaking the infection chain via new innovative indoor hygiene solutions in both residential and public buildings such as schools, hospitals, airports, and shopping malls. Long-term co-operation with companies and hospitals has resulted in unique know-how of indoor hygiene solutions in Finland. Through the workings of the interdisciplinary team of IHMEC researchers’ guidelines and standards of indoor hygiene have been developed.

IHMEC is offering a training program opportunity for the emerging specialists in Infection Prevention and Control, Quality Control and Engineers from Maintenance Departments from both health care and construction sectors in Saudi Arabia. This program will provide a great insight into the optimum procedures that are applied in Finland.

Saudi Arabia has the best knowledge of infection prevention and control in mass gatherings. In addition, the challenges of climate and a large number of visitors and pilgrims visiting Saudi Arabia makes Saudi health care and construction sectors areas of research interest worldwide. — SG