Dr. Mohamed Basheikh , The assistant professor in King Abdul Aziz Net University, expressed his concerns about the danger of the spread of Alzheimer disease in Saudi Arabia and the main factors that may lead to it, such as diabetes and pressure-ratio which is widely- spread in Saudi Arabia for more than 30% of the total population, which is considered huge compared to global statistics.
He pointed out that Alzheimer's disease patients does not exceed 7% globally for the ages between 74 and 64 years. And that ratio increases to 14% in those aged between 75 and 84 years, and for those who are over 85 years to the ratio can reach 50%.
And on the numbers of Alzheimer's patients in Saudi Arabia, he said there are no accurate statistics, but there are efforts from various sectors in collaboration with the Saudi Alzheimer's Association to create national registry for Alzheimer patients.
According to the last census in 2011, the number of people aged over 65 years more than a million, and their rate doesn’t exceed 5% of the total population, according to Basheikh the estimated number of patients with Alzheimer's in Saudi Arabia is more than fifty thousand.
At the opening of a conference between the head of King City Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Dr. Mohammed Al-Soil said in his speech that the Kingdom adopted a strong advanced medical strategic technologies in the comprehensive National Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation, which aims to curb the burden of the diseases costs, and control over the growing health care expenses, which represents 4% of GDP in the kingdom.
The project aims to raise the importance of the Saudi individual, and determine the relationship between some endemic diseases and the environment in Saudi Arabia, and to study the genetic structure of some scattered brain diseases among some citizens, including Alzheimer's, Autism, which called for the convening of this conference to review the latest experiments in this field and enrich the environment of scientific research in the Kingdom in the field of Alzheimer's disease.