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Dubai: The UAE is to set up a laboratory to test athletes for illegal performance-enhancing drugs, known as doping, and will start testing blood and urine samples from October this year.
The Gulf Anti-doping and Monitoring Enterprise (GAME), to be located at Dubiotech, is likely to cost Dh25-35 million. Officials from the UAE sports ministry, the UAE National Olympic Committee and Dubiotech signed a memorandum of understanding for the establishment of GAME at the Arab Health Exhibition in Dubai.
Abdul Rahman Al Owais, UAE Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, said the laboratory was important if the UAE planned to participate in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
"The new laboratory is crucial because it will not only serve athletes in the UAE but in other Gulf countries as well. The only laboratory in the Arab world is in Tunisia, and the next closest is in Malaysia," he said.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) laboratory at Dubiotech will provide testing for erythropoietin (EPO), and human growth hormone, common doping agents.
Dr Abdul Qader Al Khayyat, executive director of Dubiotech, said work has already begun on the multi-million dirham laboratory, to be housed in the Nucleotide Complex.
"By October we will start testing blood and urine samples from athletes," he said.
The UAE, which is a member of the World Anti-Doping Code, is expected to ratify a law in the next few months which will implement an updated code with greater penalties.
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