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The U.S. Embassy to Armenia joins the Armenian Ministry of Health to open regional disease prevention labs, the press service of the embassy reported.

Residents in Martuni, Kapan and Vanadzor are safer today thanks to the construction of laboratories designed to track, monitor, and fight infections.  The labs, constructed by the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, provided with new technology, and updated to meet modern seismic safety standards, are part of the Ministry of Health’s National Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills, Jr., joined Minister of Health Levon Altunyan to open the Ministry’s Gegharkunik Marz Laboratory in Martuni on 16 October.  The Gegharkunik facility - one of three laboratories built this year by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) - is a sustainable facility that increases Armenia’s ability to ensure biosafety and biosecurity, protecting people and animals from disease.

“This new facility will allow Armenian scientists to do their job safely and effectively -- to respond to any potential infectious disease outbreaks that could threaten Armenia’s citizens, its livestock, its economic livelihood, or national security,” Ambassador Mills said at the opening ceremony.

According to the source, these modern facilities are seismic resistant, often replacing dilapidated Soviet-era facilities that had little modern seismic protection.  The program also included purchasing state-of-the-art equipment for the Ministry staff to use in identifying, testing, and treating diseases.  The U.S. government invested $9 million to construct, equip, and train laboratory staff from the Ministries of Health, Agriculture, and Emergency Situations to ensure the new labs meet international guidelines for biosafety.