The UAE proactively conducted nationwide screening and vaccination campaigns, emerging as one of the top countries to successfully combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to medical experts, UAE's health authorities have conducted more than 60 million RT-PCR tests across the emirates. With this development, the UAE is ranking among the top countries globally in terms of the number of COVID-19 tests conducted per capita.

As per the data by Our World, the UAE stands at a rate of 6,058.94 tests per 1,000 people with a total of 60,215,918 PCR tests performed so far, right behind Cyprus. The UAE and Denmark are the only countries to have continuously featured in the top five rankings since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world. Slovakia and Austria have recently entered the list with their successful efforts against the pandemic crisis.

It is important to note that proactive decision-making and robust strategies ensured by the UAE leadership have facilitated UAE's leading global ranking in both RT-PCR screenings and COVID-19 vaccination rate.

The UAE also implemented necessary precautionary measures which helped in limiting the spread of the COVID-19 virus in the country. After witnessing a surge in infections in June, the number of COVID-19 cases has significantly declined in recent days. On Friday, the Ministry of Health and Prevention reported 1,529 new infections in the country. In the past six days, the UAE has reported the number of new infections of less than 1,600.

In view of the decline in the number of COVID-19 cases, UAE's medical experts have affirmed that a strong testing infrastructure has helped the country in successfully containing and controlling the spread of the virus.

Speaking to the media, Dr Jacob Cherian, specialist internal medicine and medical director at Dubai-based Medcare Medical Centers, stated that UAE's mass testing initiative played a crucial role in tracing, isolating, and treating positive infections. It further helped in rapid containment of the spread of the virus in the country.

The UAE's proactive safety measures focused on testing, tracing contacts, and treatment of positive patients. In addition, health authorities conducted extensive RT-PCR screening across the country to control the number of positive infections.

"The active role of the health authorities in tracing the contacts of positive patients and providing isolation facilities when required for positive cases has helped UAE to contain the pandemic very well,” Dr Cherian added.

In line with efforts to combat the pandemic, the UAE health authorities increased the number of tests per day from an average of 10,000 by the end of March 2020 to 120,000 in November and more than 270,000 in July this year.

Mayur Sabhani, group director for laboratory services at VPS Healthcare, stated that the UAE's mass testing strategy facilitated early detection of positive cases and limited community transmission.

“Massive screening drives help identify the positive cases and offer timely support to save lives. It will prevent community transmission by identifying the positive cases and isolating them," Sabhani said.

The UAE's proactive testing and isolation strategy provided a fool-proof system to identify, monitor, and manage changing trends in real-time. Sabhani stated that the UAE has been a frontrunner with its implementation of PCR testing efforts.

"Even if there are other ways to screen for Covid-19, the RT-PCR test remains the gold standard," he added.

Sabhani further explained why PCR testing continues to be a gold standard in detecting infections in a short period of time.

"PCR testing using a nasal swab is the best choice because it will have fewer false-negative results than other diagnostic tests," he said.

As of now, the UAE is offering three types of tests to detecting COVID-19: RT-PCR, antibody tests and laser-based DPI technology. In addition to these tests, the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi earlier approved antigen testing, RT-LAMP test and saliva test to identify positive infections.