How relevant is the functioning of the Central Reference Laboratories (CLR) in Kazakhstan?
The chairman of the Public Health Committee of the Ministry of Health of RK, the Chief State Sanitary Doctor of RK Zhandarbek Bekshin told a press conference at the CCS.
“In 2017 in Kazakhstan on the basis of the Kazakh Scientific Center for Quarantine and Zoonotic Infections named after M. Aykimbaeva of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan began to operate the Central Reference Laboratory, which currently has specialists from scientific organizations of three ministries (health, agriculture, science and education). The data of the ministry in our republic are the main government agencies that ensure the biological safety of the country, ”he said.
Its main purpose, according to the speaker, is to increase the technological and methodological possibilities of controlling especially dangerous infections and to conduct research to prevent mass epidemics in the country.
Gendarbek Bekshin noted the relevance of the issue of creating such a reference laboratory.
“Firstly, a significant part of the territory of our country is natural foci of dangerous infections, including plague, tularemia, hemorrhagic fevers, and unsuccessful sites for anthrax were registered. The incidence of brucellosis, imported cases of cholera, dengue fever is recorded. The situation is similar for all our neighbors. The activation of natural foci occurs under the influence of various factors, including climatic and anthropogenic, ”he said.
The chief sanitary doctor noted that secondly, this is the development of tourism and imported cases.
Today, Kazakhstan is actively developing international programs aimed at the development of biological safety and rapid response to outbreaks (protection of people, animals, plants and the environment from contamination / contamination by pathogenic microorganisms), biological protection, as well as field epidemiology.
For example, Kazakhstan has implemented projects of the European Union, the International Science and Technology Center, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Canada, the German Advanced Biological and Medical Safety Program of the German Foreign Ministry, as well as the CDC and the Threat Agency of the US Department of Defense, research centers, institutes and universities .
“Thirdly, Kazakhstan, as a country that voluntarily renounced nuclear weapons, is part of the global non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, one of which is biological weapons,” he said.
As the speaker recalled, the central reference laboratory was built on the territory of the Central Committee of Central Regional Conference of Central and Eastern Europe and is a complex of high-tech buildings with special characteristics (especially high seismic resistance, tightness and the presence of negative pressure in some rooms, and much more).
The laboratory is a 4-storey building with an area of 6.3 thousand square meters. m., where laboratories are located 2 and 3 levels of biosafety. For the uninterrupted operation of the CRL, the necessary engineering and technical structures for heating, gas and electricity supply with spare autonomous generators of high power, water purification and air filtration were built and equipped. There are 15 specially trained professional engineers in the laboratory. “The laboratory is equipped with the necessary modern diagnostic and research equipment, and a set of reagents for working with pathogens of especially dangerous infections,” noted J. Bekshin.
According to the speaker, the uniqueness of the project is that when planning the laboratory it was developed specifically for the conditions of Almaty, the highest coefficient, 3.3, was applied in the calculations of the structures. The building is designed for an earthquake of 9 points.
The system of biological safety and protection of CRL fully complies with the requirements of the legislation of Kazakhstan, imposed on the technical strengthening of buildings and premises.
Only qualified professional and technical specialists have the right to work in the CRL.
“The presence of a laboratory in a scientific center allows minimizing the path from science to production, since vaccines and immunobiological preparations are developed and manufactured in the same complex with the CRL at the KSCCCI for diagnosing and preventing plague, anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis and other infectious diseases”, clarified the doctor.
Consumers of these drugs, as the speaker noted, are medical and veterinary organizations not only in Kazakhstan, but also in Russia, Central Asia, Mongolia and the Caucasus.
“The CRL is integrated into the national center for training specialists of the KSCQZI for especially dangerous infections for physicians, biologists and veterinary workers. For decades, hundreds of doctors and biologists from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have been trained here, ”Bekshin recalled.