Dubai: New Public Health Law Impacts Travellers

Gulf News, 25 April 2025: Travellers entering Dubai are to be required to follow specific health protocols as a result of a new health law.

Dubai Law No. 5/2025 on Public Health outlines a wide-ranging framework to improve community health, reduce disease transmission, and align public health practices with international standards.

It introduces strict obligations for travellers, individuals, and healthcare providers, while also clarifying the roles of government entities in safeguarding health and the environment.

Travellers must adhere to official health protocols, provide requested information at Dubai’s entry points and report any suspected or confirmed communicable diseases.

Anyone who is infected or suspected of having a communicable disease must avoid contact that could spread their illness. The law states individuals must refrain from travelling or moving, except to healthcare facilities, without the approval of the Dubai Health Authority.

Those who are travelling while ill, must observe hygiene measures such as wearing masks and maintaining physical distancing in line with approved guidelines.

The law prohibits concealing infections or spreading them, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and requires individuals to comply with measures to prevent the spread of disease, following guidelines issued by relevant authorities and healthcare providers.

It has established a comprehensive framework to promote public health and safeguard community and environmental well-being. It outlines a focus on disease prevention, healthcare, food and product safety and sustainable efforts to improve overall quality of life.

It aims to minimise any health risks affecting individuals and communities in Dubai through precautionary measures and evidence-based practices that align with both local and international health regulations.

It also promotes greater coordination and collaboration at all levels to strengthen preparedness and response to any public health challenges in the emirate. and aims to increase public awareness of health risks and prevention methods by fostering a sustainable environment that attracts investment.

In addition, it has also formally defined the roles and responsibilities of relevant authorities in managing communicable diseases.

These authorities include local government entities tasked with overseeing public health in Dubai, such as Dubai Health Authority, Dubai Municipality, the Dubai Environment and Climate Change Authority, the Dubai Academic Health Corporation and the Dubai Corporation for Ambulance Services.

The law has outlined the responsibilities of the relevant authorities in food safety, specified obligations for food-related establishments and set out some rules for consumer product activities.

It has also detailed responsibilities in areas such as built environmental health, labour accommodations, pest control and the Dubai Health Authority’s role in managing health risks, emergencies and crises.

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Dubai: Launches World’s First AI-Powered Financial Governance System

Emarat Al Youm, 22 April 2025: Dubai’s Department of Finance has unveiled “ASCEND,” an AI-powered system designed to enhance financial governance and compliance.

The system was launched during the inaugural Dubai AI Week, reflecting the department’s commitment to modernising government financial operations and ensuring future readiness through advanced technology and innovation.

“ASCEND” is a cornerstone of Dubai’s AI strategy, driving comprehensive transformation in financial operations to ensure accountability, flexibility, and excellence. It addresses government compliance challenges such as data fragmentation and manual processes and it seamlessly integrates with other internal systems, enabling unified compliance oversight without data transfer. The system automates traditional review processes, setting a high global standard for public sector financial oversight.

It employs a multi-step intelligent approach supported by open-source large language models and retrieval-augmented generation architecture and analyses complex legal texts, understands financial processes, and assesses compliance with relevant laws and regulations. The system generates actionable AI-driven recommendations to support governance practices and automatically issues clear compliance reports in Arabic and English.

“ASCEND” has been designed to be secure and scalable, operating on a cloud infrastructure within the UAE to ensure full data sovereignty and compliance with national information security standards.

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