IHMEC – Opening indoor hygiene SME’s exports to the Middle East construction markets

IHMEC project creates and exports joint indoor hygiene solution of Central Baltic area SME’s into the Saudi Arabian construction market using indoor hygiene (IH) as a competitive edge. The project brings together relevant clusters from Finland, Sweden and Estonia into a meta-cluster which aims to enter into the Middle East construction market with new and tailor-made indoor hygiene solutions.

Pandemics and antibiotic resistance are a threat to global health

The biggest threats to global health today are pandemics and antimicrobial resistance. A growing number of infections – such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and salmonellosis – are becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them become less effective. Antibiotic resistance leads to longer hospital stays, higher medical costs and increased mortality.

The combination of globalization of both people and goods, urbanization and challenge of healthcare associated infections and resistant microbes enables the global spreading of harmful infections. The Middle-East climate forces people to remain indoors and hence, large crowds, who are meeting daily at e.g. shopping centres, airports, schools and hospitals, are at risk of catching infections.

Traditional means of good hygiene are no longer sufficient. New solutions are desperately needed to prevent the global spreading of serious infections. IHMEC project can offer new ideas to transmission prevention measures.