UAE Foreign Minister Anwar Qarqash says epidemic could help ease tensions in Middle East

UAE Foreign Minister Dr Anwar Qarqash has said that Gulf countries, including Iran and six Arab countries, will emerge as "weak, poor and broken" from the corona virus outbreak.
Speaking to the BBC, he said the only solution for the whole region was to reduce tensions.
The UAE is one of the richest countries in the world and it started preparing for the epidemic as soon as possible, buying a large number of testing kits and starting production of masks.
Out of a total population of about 9 million, 23,358 victims have been reported so far and 220 have been killed.
On the other side of the Gulf waters is Iran, the most affected country in the region. One hundred and twenty-two thousand victims have been confirmed here while seven thousand people have died.
The UAE has also sent medical aid to Iran and the United Kingdom.
"We knew in January that it would come to us and that the epidemic would not be limited to China," said Dr Qarqash. So we immediately took action and started preparations for it.
He says that in late January, the UAE's national security adviser warned that the impending epidemic would exacerbate concerns about the ongoing war in Yemen.
It should be noted that the United Arab Emirates has reduced its military activities in Yemen after deploying its forces against the pro-Iranian Houthi rebels for many years.
Regarding the common enemy of the virus for everyone, Dr. Qarqash said that he hoped that the virus would help reduce some of the regional conflicts that have engulfed the entire region.
Yemen, for example, has been embroiled in a civil war for more than five years, which has dragged on other countries and destroyed the country's fragile health system.
Like all other Gulf Arab countries, the UAE has a large number of foreign migrant workers, the majority of whom are from poorer South Asian countries.
Many people live in crowded communal residences, and the UAE city of Dubai initially saw such a high rate of disease outbreaks that it had to be temporarily closed and sanitized before it could be reopened.
Everyone must wear a mask in public.
"You get used to it," says James, a British citizen living in Dubai. It makes us feel very safe and there is a lot of testing going on. The secret police are everywhere [so people are banning].
Now 30 to 40 thousand tests are being done daily by getting samples from the nose and the number of new victims is around 700 daily.
Dr Qarqash says the UAE is also testing an innovative treatment with stem cells that has been tested on 73 patients so far. He says it has yielded some encouraging results.
He said: 'We had a patient in intensive care in a coma. After treatment, he recovered.
Dr Qarqash believes that the epidemic will lead to greater investment in health technology, including artificial intelligence, but will also lead to austerity.
"The biggest challenge will be economic. We have suffered a double blow, both from the epidemic and from falling oil prices.
He says the region's governments will now be tested on how they handle spending cuts.