RusAl, one of the world’s largest aluminium producers, and Rospotrebnadzor have delivered a mobile laboratory and research supplies to the Russian-Guinean epidemiology and infectious diseases prevention center in the Republic of Guinea.
The mobile laboratory was delivered as part of the Russian-Guinean partnership in the sphere of health to combat infectious diseases with support from the Russian Federation.
The new mobile laboratory will boost the effectiveness of the Russian-Guinean epidemiology and infectious diseases prevention center, which was created at the clinical and diagnostic research center of epidemiology and microbiology.
The clinical and diagnostic research center of epidemiology and microbiology was built, fully equipped by RusAl in the Kindia region in 2015 at the height of the Ebola epidemic to help prevent the spread of the deadly virus in Guinea.
According to reports, RusAl invested over US$10 million in the construction of the new center.
In 2017, as part of a private-public partnership, RusAl and the Federal Consumer Supervision Service reorganized part of the clinical and diagnostic research center of epidemiology and microbiology into a modern laboratory complex allowing laboratory tests to be carried out in stationary conditions while offering high levels of protection.
The efforts to repurpose some of the rooms were carried out by RusAl in record time while taking into account the international standards and recommendations of the lead engineers from the Federal Consumer Supervision Service.
RusAl has also provided key assistance in the delivery and installation of precision equipment for the laboratory, weighing more than 50 tons.
Today, the Federal Consumer Supervision Service created at the clinical and diagnostic research center of epidemiology and microbiology, in conjunction with, the Institute for Biological Research (IRBAG, Kindia) is part of the Russian-Guinean research center of epidemiology and prevention of infectious diseases.
It is considered a unique facility in the region because of its use of complicated technology and level of biological safety. The work of the new mobile laboratory, delivered to the Russian-Guinean epidemiology center, will enable it to diagnose dangerous infections, taking the national healthcare system to a new level in Guinea.
RusAl has participated in combating Ebola in Guinea. During the Ebola epidemic in April 2014, it was one of the first international companies in Guinea to buy a consignment of drugs and preventive supplies, and delivered it to the Guinean Ministry of Health.
Since August 2014, RusAl has been providing financial and technical help for the special anti-epidemic brigade of the Russian Federal Consumer Supervision Service that was dispatched to Guinea. This effort made a huge contribution to containing history’s largest outbreak of Ebola in Guinea.
Today, the spread of dangerous naturally clustering infections such as Ebola, Lassa, Yellow Fever, Malaria, Western Nile fever and others, continues to be studied by the mobile units of the brigade and adopts new systems for diagnosing and preventing dangerous infections.
Through the private-public partnership, RusAl has organized seminars in Guinea featuring talks from leading Russian medical researchers including Russian Academic, Victor Maleev, and Professor Constantine Zhdanov, Russian Ministry of Defense, and supported Russian representatives participate in international congresses in Malabe, Conakry, Kindia, Moscow and Geneva.
In December 2018, RusAl and the Health Ministry of Russia announced that they had finished an Ebola vaccination campaign in the Republic of Guinea. Two thousand people received the new GamEvak Combi vaccine as part of the post-registration studies that is being conducted in Guinea at the Clinical Research and Diagnostics Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology.
RusAl, a leader in the global aluminium industry, has been operating in the Republic of Guinea since 2001. It owns Compagnie des Bauxites de Kindia (CBK), as well as the Friguia bauxite and alumina production facility. It further continues the implementation of a project aimed at developing the world’s largest bauxite deposit Dian-Dian in Boke.
