IFRS Suitability to Emerging Markets: Empirical Evidence from Qatar

Most of the countries in GCC region (except Saudi Arabia) have adapted IFRS in 1990s except Oman who was the first to adopt in 1986. Therefore, it can be concluded that, Qatar is one of the countries which adopted IFRS since long time ago. However, no serious discussion was there so far to see whether IFRS adoption in emerging economy country like Qatar is feasible or it has been taken as granted. The adoption of IFRS at country level has sparked two contrasting, but not mutually exclusive viewpoints. One view, which favors IFRS adoption, is that IFRS produces better financial reporting since it is superior accounting standards in comparison to domestic accounting standards (Barth 2008). Additionally, convergence to a singular accounting standard ensures greater comparability that helps investors to make their investment decisions. It results improvement of information environment in a country and hence contribute towards lowering the cost of capital (Barth 2008). The opposite view is that, the accounting quality is shaped by political and economic forces (Ball 2006) and therefore Accounting standard solely will not translate into higher quality reporting. The main objective of the study is to assess the suitability of' International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for emerging market such as Qatar; specifically, the current research explore advantages and disadvantages of IFRS implementation in Qatar. From the prior studies perspective, we found that IFRS is suitable for Qatar for many reasons. First of all, most of the companies in Qatar are characterized by insider dominated ownership structure. Therefore, majority of the shares are owned by the family owners. Also, the influences of institutional investors are in a greater margin in Qatari Stock Market. Moreover, the code of corporate governance in Qatar was just implemented three years back in 2009. As discussed earlier, the law system in Qatar is also very weak in regard to financial reporting. In these circumstances, IFRS can play a big role in Qatar since it is an advanced reporting standard developed and it could ensure that all the information are there for the shareholders and no asymmetric information situation could happen and ensures the rights of individual shareholders. Since Qatar is undergoing major development for the World Cup 2022 and National Vision 2030, it is important for Qatar to attract foreign investors for capital market. IFRS implementation will help Qatar to ensure foreign investors in gaining confidence in Qatari capital market. Furthermore, Qatar has adopted IFRS in 1995 and before that no specific requirement was that which is more established and strictly adopted by the companies. Therefore, Qatar didn't face a lot of issues while the adoption process. However, countries like Australia, Spain who were having their own developed standard faced a lot of issue since they were having their own standard practiced for a period of time. Thus, the current study concluded that IFRS implementation is suitable for the economy of Qatar considering its benefits, Qatari corporate ownership structure and commercial law of Qatar. Although, Qatar is following IFRS without any amendments by considering their own culture, economic environment and corporate governance, however, their implementation was very strong with the existence of big four international audit firm and regulation from Qatar Central Bank and Qatar Financial Market Authority. Furthermore, many of the Qatari companies such as QTEL, QNB are listed in internationally in various stock exchanges because they are following IFRS for their financial report. Finally, we conclude saying that, despite come short coming are there, it is beneficial to adopt IFRS for an emerging country like Qatar.qscienc

Usefulness of routine pairing of anaerobic with aerobic blood culture bottles and decision making on antimicrobial therapy

ObjectivesTo evaluate the growth concordance in paired aerobic/anaerobic sets, and the impact of the anaerobic growth on patients' antimicrobial management.MethodThis is a prospective multicenter study which was conducted in three hospitals, with total beds of 750 beds and 52 ICU beds. Prospectively, laboratory blood cultures logbooks were daily reviewed and patients from whom blood cultures were ordered were followed, their chart were reviewed. Entries on antimicrobial therapeutic changes were noted for all paired sets. Clinicians were blinded to the study, though they were informed about culture results via the usual work protocol in each hospital.ResultsCollected Blood culture sets totaled 2492; 172 single sets were excluded, and 1160 paired sets were analyzed. 1046 were concordant; 79 sets had bacterial growth and 967 sets had no bacterial growth. 114 sets were discordant; 97 in aerobic bottles, 13 in anaerobic, and 4 in both.The proportion of agreement for the concordant paired growth sets was 90.2%.  The composite proportion of agreement for sets with any growth (N = 193, composite proportion of agreement = 56%, 95% C.I., 34% - 48%). Cohen kappa composite agreement, measured for the total analyzed paired-sets (N = 1160, K = .52, SE = .038. 95% C.I., .447 - .595). The odds of modifying antimicrobial regimen were for total and subgroups intent to treat odds, based on paired sets showed that one modification took place in one anaerobic growth set (N = 1160, Odds = 0.0008), the odds for all sets with any growth (N = 193, odds = .005), and based on any anaerobic sets (79 concordant, 13 anaerobic, and 4 discordant) with bacterial growth (N = 96: odds = 0.010).ConclusionThe study demonstrates that the proportion of agreement among paired sets were high, and needless to include anaerobic sets in routine blood culture collection. Also the decision-making of anti-infective treatment on patients based on anaerobic blood culture growth was not evident

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century