The population of Israel today is 9.8 million people. Among them, 20% are Arabs (about 2 million people) whose first language is Arabic. Due to this, the Israel Multiple Myeloma Association, AMEN, decided to promote multiple activities that will support Arabic-speaking patients with information about myeloma.

The activities included:

• A website in Arabic, similar to the one that is running in Hebrew.
• Translation of an online system that searches the relevant rights of the patients into Arabic. According to an individual´s medical and personal condition, the system gives each patient the relevant rights, including assistance in obtaining them.
• A Facebook page in Arabic, similar to the one that is running in Hebrew.
• Printed materials in Arabic, made available in the medical centres to help local patients and their carers, and patients from the West Bank, who come to receive treatment and do not have other informational resources.

To kick off this activity, a few highly motivated people volunteered, including patient advocates and haematologists who are Arabic speakers. Soon after the release of the new translated site, the AMEN team periodically monitored the usage level of the Arabic language website and its various parts.

“We were astonished to find that, the information under the ‘Medical Information’ pages were accessed the most. This was significantly different than any other part of the website and increased our curiosity. The entire medical information under the AMEN website is reviewed and approved by AMEN’s medical advisors who are senior myeloma specialists. We always recommend patients and carers seek information about myeloma on our website rather than asking ‘Dr. Google’ since we are working hard to make it trusty and reliable,” says Zvika Zilberman, AMEN member and MPE Board member.

“Translation of medical information from one foreign language to another is not straightforward. We need to thank the volunteering spirits of the people who have taken the lead in translating into Arabic the medical information with emphasis on the correctness of terms and making it available for local Arabic patients at first, but also as we discovered, useful information for global medical teams that seeks myeloma information in Arabic,” explains Varda Shoham, AMEN Chief Executive Officer.