QNRF firmly backs efforts to mitigate impact of Covid-19

Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) is making efforts through various programmes to support the nation in its fight against various challenges including the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19), noted a top official.

“In dealing with challenges such as the pandemic Covid-19, QNRF is committed to contribute to the nation’s efforts by providing solutions," Dr Abdul Sattar al-Taie, executive director, QNRF, told Gulf Times in an exclusive interview.

The objective is to combat the adverse impact of Covid-19 on Qatar through a multidisciplinary approach that tackles the impact on the economy apart from the social, cultural life and the psychological wellbeing of citizens and residents,” he explained.

QNRF, a member of Qatar Foundation, is the national funding agency for research activities in Qatar and promotes research among scientists and researchers in the country as well as collaborations with major institutes from around the world.

“QNRF also aims to better understand and improve the nation’s capacity to prepare, respond to, and recover from emergencies such as Covid-19 through providing solutions based on research to enhance system’s readiness; foster community preparedness and engagement; understand population vulnerability; and explore strategies to improve disaster response and recovery,” Dr al-Taie observed.

The pandemic is one of the biggest challenges in the modern times. “Indeed, the speed, widespread and impact of Covid-19 took the whole world by surprise and showed how fragile and ill-prepared it was to cope with the situation. It is also true that the outbreak of Covid-19 is unprecedented in modern times and its spread is off the charts and that all models would have not predicted such severity and far-ranging consequences we could have imagined before,” he noted.

According to the QNRF official, the world will not be the same, once the pandemic is overcome.

“In the aftermath of Covid-19 I can foresee big shifts in world’s politics, economics, energy market, human behaviour, health systems, supply chain, poverty, education, and so forth. To overcome these challenges, the countries need to revisit their preparedness and resilience to mitigate disasters and crises of this calibre. They also need to revisit their regulations to address the weaknesses that were exposed due to the spread of Covid-19,” he continued.

“Finally, it is my firm belief that the world must commit more resources to scientific research which remain everyone’s hope to provide much needed solutions like vaccine and drugs for Covid-19. Similalrly, it is imperative that researchers and scientists all over the world must find new ways to work together in a united front to combat such pandemics and crises rather than trying to work separately,” Dr al-Taie added.