Rospotrebnadzor sends anti-epidemic aid to Lebanon

MOSCOW. Aug 5 (Interfax) - Russia's Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor) has sent a mobile lab with a team of specialists from the Mikrob Russian Anti-Plague Research Institute to help prevent sanitary-epidemiological threats.

"At the request of the Lebanese Republic, Rospotrebnadzor has sent a specialized anti-epidemic brigade of the Mikrob Institute to Beirut to provide assistance in preventing threats of sanitary-epidemiological nature resulting from the industrial disaster," the Rospotrebnadzor press service said in a statement on Wednesday.

"This is a truck-mounted mobile laboratory equipped with cutting-edge equipment to organize anti-epidemic efforts and to diagnose infections, particularly dangerous ones, including coronavirus infection," it said.

The team includes some leading specialists of the Mikrob Institute "who have a vast working experience, particularly in stemming outbreaks of dangerous infections in African, South-East Asian and CIS countries," it said.

The coronavirus situation in Lebanon is still tense, Rospotrebnadzor said. "As a result of a techno-catastrophe, there is a high risk of aggravating sanitary-epidemiological situation and spreading infectious diseases in a hot climate," it said.

The team sent by Rospotrebnazor to Lebanon is capable of "ensuring the analysis of several hundred samples per day, working in a fully autonomous mode with a high level of biological safety in terms of protecting personnel and the environment," the Russian state agency said.