Opening of State-of-the-Art Lab Raises Hopes for Improved TB Treatment
On January 25, 2006 Belgorod Oblast’s Central Bacteriological Laboratory celebrated its official opening. Vice Governor of the Belgorod Oblast, Dimitriy Khudaev, USAID/Russia Director, Terry Myers, the Head of Healthcare for the Belgorod Oblast, Alexander Stukalov, Head of the Russian Delegation of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), Alexander Matheou, Deputy Tuberculosis (TB) Coordinator for WHO in Russia, Dimitriy Pashkevich, and Archbishop of Belgorod and Stariy Oskol, the Most Reverend Ioann, delivered remarks to an audience of over 100 people. The Belgorod Oblast Administration has contributed more than $560,000 plus yearly recurring expenses to the program which has been supported by IFRC, the Russia Red Cross, and USAID.
The laboratory, with state-of-the-art equipment funded partially through $400,000 from USAID, replaces the dangerous regional laboratories with a safe facility that now meets WHO and Centers for Disease Control standards for proper ventilation and equipment. The laboratory provides a centralized facility for verifying the effectiveness of drug regimens on different strains of TB bacteria which, by recent estimates from the Ministry of Health, now infect two out of every three people in Russia.
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| A lab technician works with Tuberculosis bacteria under the protection of a
testing cabinet funded by USAID at the new Bacteriological Laboratory of Belgorod |
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