GIS Featured at Qatar's First Primary Health Care Conference   In April, Qatar hosted its first primary health care conference. The conference was officially opened by Turki Al-Khater, Assistant Undersecretary for Administration and Finance at the Ministry of Public Health (MPH). Chairing the conference was Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Kuwari, Director of the Primary Health Care Department and National GIS Steering Committee representative for Health. Vice Chairperson of the first conference session, Dr. Noor A. Noorani, GIS Coordinator for MPH made various presentations including: "The role of a Geographic Information System for Health in Qatar," "A Review of Health Information Systems in Qatar," and "The Epidemiology of Parasitic Infestations Amongst School Entrant Children in Qatar." "The role of GIS is becoming increasingly important in the area of primary health care," states Noorani. "The ability to easily examine the relationship between location, population mix, and the availability of local health care facilities will be of great benefit in allocating resources. Immunization programs and educational seminars can be more easily established, while the source of disease outbreaks can be quickly pinpointed and treated."   GIS demonstrations were performed by R. Chandra Sekaran of MPH and Qassim Al-Ghanem of the Planning Department. Dr.Noorani, demonstrating GIS applications for health As a result of the conference presentations and deliberations, Al-Kuwari recommended at the concluding ceremony that the Qatar National ID number be used to register and identify patients at primary health care centers. This has great impact for the use of GIS in the area of health care, as it will allow the linking of medical data with all other data available on GISNet, Qatar's national GIS database.   CONTENTS NEXT