LANI ROSE R DIZON

DOHA A FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND travel clinic for people going out of, or coming into the country with endemic diseases, is set to open in Qatar within the next few months, a top official said on Tuesday.

The clinic is likely to be located either at the Hamad General Hospital Outpatient Department or at the Rumailah Hospital communicable and patients would be able to seek appointment on phone, Dr Abdullatif al Khal, chairman of medicine department and head of infection control unit at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) said.

“The travel clinic we would like to introduce as part of our outpatient services where people before travelling to countries where there are endemic diseases such as malaria, meningitis, and hepatitis, come to be assessed before travel.

Here they will also be advised on how to stay healthy during the travel. They will also be given necessary vaccines before they leave on their journies”, Khal told mediapersons on the sidelines of the Vaccination Week launch.

“We hope to open it sometime soon It would be a single clinic to start with, and so we expect that there will be a waiting time. Later, we may expand our working hours and the number of clinics,” he added.

The clinic is also for people who return from travel and who have taken ill during travel. For example, if soon after returning from abroad somebody gets rashes or fever, then the clinic will take a look at it. The clinic’s services will be available to both Qataris and non-Qataris.

The clinic will be run by doctors specialising in infectious diseases.

“We have several doctors who are interested. We also have community physicians from the SCH who are interested to work with us in running the clinic, because it is mainly health promotion and health prevention and this is their role also,” he added.