Tribune News Network
Doha
In a significant contribution to Syria’s specialised health care services, Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) has delivered an advanced flow cytometry machine to the Ministry of Health’s (MoH) Pathological Anatomy Laboratory in Idlib.
This is part of a project to enhance access, efficiency, and sustainability of specialised healthcare services in Syria, implemented in cooperation with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society (SARCS) and the Idlib Health Directorate.
Being the first of its kind in Syria to provide free-of-charge blood cancer diagnosis services, the machine is the most state-of-the-art in the country, used to analyse cells and diagnose and monitor blood cancers with high accuracy, helping improve chances of early detection and therapy
personalisation.
The flow cytometry machine is one of the main advanced medical diagnostic instruments. It is useful in diagnosing blood cancers such as leukaemia and lymphoma, by identifying the type and measuring the number of cancer cells. Other uses include monitoring human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients, monitoring bone marrow transplants, and assessing autoimmune diseases.
This achievement is part of QRCS’s ongoing efforts to support the Syrian health system and secure the latest medical technologies to raise the quality of health services and ensure sustainability in serving the most vulnerable groups.
Another cancer-related project to be launched by QRCS seeks to provide chemotherapy and immunotherapy drugs for 100 displaced and poor cancer patients at the oncology centres in Syria, at a cost of QR10,000 per patient, or QR1 million in total.