DUBAI, March 21: Khalaf Al Habtoor, Founding Chairman of Al Habtoor Group (AHG) and a renowned philanthropist, is stepping up to aid the UAE’s COVID-19 medical response in a timely and generous manner.

Thursday, the Emirati businessman received HE Humaid Al Qutami, Director-General of the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) and extended his full backing in support of the country’s fight against the novel coronavirus.

Al Habtoor, known for his extensive charitable work and programmes is donating 50 ambulances to the UAE health authorities, to be used in the country’s fully integrated response against the novel coronavirus. In addition to the ambulances, the AHG Chairman has also allocated a fully equipped building of more than 100 rooms to DHA, for the purpose of quarantining coronavirus affected patients.

He has also committed to building a specialised laboratory for research on viruses and epidemic control, in collaboration with the DHA and Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences (MBRU).

With the UAE taking all possible efforts in its COVID-19 mitigation operations, in order to prevent the highly contagious flu-like virus from spreading, timely and generous citizen contributions are the need of the hour. Al Habtoor said: “In the time of a global pandemic, we need to direct all our efforts in identifying and defeating the virus as early as possible and as quickly as possible. I hope our contributions will aid