Dubai friends Akber Naqvi (Co-Founder of The ZB Foundation) and his great friend Vikram Jethwani are running the Marathon des Sables in April 2019 to raise awareness and funding for The ZB Foundation which is the only independent non profit organisation in Pakistan providing FREE New Born Screening tests to all babies born.

Imagine this: running in temperatures of 50 Degrees, with the sun burning down on your skin, sand grains in your eyes, your mouth as dry as the desert, your back pack contains your weeks food, extra clothes, medical kit and even your bed. Your feet are sore as your running shoes start to fall apart from running across all terrains and on one day in particular you have just ran a double marathon – 90 kilometers. Welcome to the toughest foot race in the world – Marathon des Sables – a 250-kilometer race across the Sahara Desert over 6 days.

As Marathon des Sables runners, Akber and Vik will spend each night in an open-sided tent on a barren wasteland with not much to eat and their only possessions being what they can carry. They are dirty, dusty and smelly due to being in the same clothes for 6 days (extra clothes take up too much space) and are permanently covered in dust and desperate for a shower. If you want to run fast at MDS every gram counts so what is in your back pack must be of importance - some people have cut the handles off their toothbrush to save weight and space! Since you’re also carrying your weeks’ worth of food with you, you either have to run slow, or go hungry.

The boys have been in training for the last few months pushing themselves to the max, however nothing will really prepare them until April when they are left to defend for themselves in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

MDS dates are 5th - 15th April 2019 to find out more visit www.marathondessables.com

The ZB Foundation:

Akber and his wife Dani, adopted Zahra at birth from Pakistan and brought her back to Dubai in order to start a life together as a family. Then the unimaginable happened. For 17 days, Zahra fought for her life in an ICU in Dubai. Every organ in her little body was failing but she kept hanging on with pure will and determination with the pouring of love from parents by her side. Her kidneys had failed, her liver her failed, her body was bloated to the size of a toddler, yet her heart stayed strong and kept beating. We were waiting for the results of her tests and after a couple of heart wrenching hours, the Drs at Tawam hospital in Al Ain finally worked out what Zahra’s condition was, and diagnosed her with GA type 2, a rare metabolic disorder. So rare that it usually occurs 1 in 250,000 new born births. But the moment the diagnosis was confirmed, her strong little fighting heart beat for the last time and our daughter age 4 months slipped away and became a shooting star.

Through the death of our daughter, we set up an organisation to pioneer the use of New Born Screening, target the uncharted medical area of rare metabolic diseases, and over time, become a compelling soldier for the fight against baby/infant deaths.

We are the ONLY independent and free new born screening facility in the entire country. Zahra’s team educates Drs, midwives, hospitals and parents the importance of screening your baby. Pakistan has an annual birth rate of approximately 4.2 million babies (can you imagine - that’s the entire population of New Zealand!) it also has an extremely high child mortality rate that is one of the worst in the world. The babies of Pakistan have simply been neglected when it comes to health care especially new born screening; unlike the children in the west or in developed countries who receive a mandatory new born screening test at birth.

The ZB Foundation - The Zahra Beau Foundation is a registered, licensed and audited NGO and through generous personal donations we have so far tested nearly 20,000 babies in central and northern Pakistan soon to reach south Pakistan, specifically Karachi.

Please visit www.thezbfoundation.com to find out more.

To listen to Akber chat to Dubai Eye Radio, please click on the link below:

http://www.thezbfoundation.com/running-save-babies-marathon-des-sables/