A record 3,900 companies from more than 60 countries are taking part in the 39th Arab Health Exhibition & Congress which opened its door today (January 27) at the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre.

The event, which runs up till January 30, was inaugurated this morning by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance & Industry.

The event will see the leading companies along with the 38 country pavilions showcase their products and technologies over 65,677 sq m area of exhibition space, said the event organisers Informa Life Sciences Exhibitions.

The four-day event also welcomed the addition of the brand new ‘Za’abeel 4’ hall which accommodates 400 additional exhibitors, they added.

Speaking at the launch, Simon Page, the MD for Informa Life Sciences Exhibitions said: “Arab Health is at the heart of the region’s healthcare, and for a very valid reason. With the UAE healthcare market alone expanding by almost 100 per cent last year and recent reports suggesting it is on a path to becoming a Dh4 billion ($1.08 billion) industry by 2018, there is no better time or place to host one of the foremost healthcare trade events in the world.”

According to him, the event's already established country pavilions, such as the US and Chinese pavilions remain heavyweights in terms of size.

The Chinese pavilion has 510 exhibitors this year when compared to 420 exhibitors in 2013.

The US pavilion, with more than 215 companies (12 per cent more exhibitors than in 2013), is the largest American group ever to assemble at Arab Health in its 20th consecutive year of attending.

The other new features this year include the newly-launched Training Village, where top specialists in the healthcare sector, such as Philips, Siemens, Samsung, Boston Children’s Hospital, Hill-Rom, G-MEA Association and Johnson & Johnson are running hands-on training sessions on the most sophisticated and up-to-date devices.

The world’s largest multi-track series of healthcare conferences, the Arab Health Congress, is anticipating more than 10,000 delegates over the next four day, said the organisers.

A highlight of this year’s event was the keynote address by Prof Maha Barakat, the director general, Health Authority–Abu Dhabi (HAAD), who spoke this morning about the most recent Diabetes Guideline for the Middle East.

"If we look at statistics on the top 10 countries in terms of absolute numbers of people with diabetes, only Egypt is among the top 10 with 7.5 million people with diabetes. However, if we look at the prevalence of diabetes as a percentage of population, then we will find Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain among the top 10 list," he noted.

"The UAE is no longer in the top 10 per capita, and is now15thworldwide, according to latest estimates fromthe International Diabetes Federation (IDF)," he added.-TradeArabia News Service