Three Gulf States Reach Out to Israel for Help Battling COVID-19 Pandemic
Three states in the Arab Gulf are actively engaged in cooperation with Israel’s health system, with one having recently asked for help installing an advanced telemedicine system to confront the coronavirus pandemic, a senior official at one of the country’s leading hospitals said Sunday.
Top representatives from Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have been in regular touch with the Sheba Medical Center since before the current health crisis, said Yoel Hareven, who heads the hospital’s international division. But in March, a high-ranking member of the Emirati royal family privately visited the hospital in Ramat Gan and has since remained in weekly contact, Hareven said.
In addition, a third country in the Gulf that is not known to have strong ties with Israel recently reached out to Sheba with a request for help installing telemedicine solutions to treat COVID-19 patients from afar, something Sheba has specialized in, he said.
Hareven refused to name the third country, but was likely referring to Kuwait.
“There is a growing readiness to interact with us, even openly, in the health sphere,” he said. “These things happen slowly, but they happen, maybe not at the [inter-governmental] level as we would have liked, but things are happening.”
Read More: Times of Israel