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This did not prevent Russia from launching a propaganda and disinformation campaign against these laboratories, which had long been modernized and adapted for civilian purposes.
Russia is concerned that the aforementioned disease control laboratories, located on the territory of the former Soviet empire, are the legacy of one of the most successful and benevolent U.S. foreign policy programs of all time.
When the United States was a world leader, before Washington turned its back on international cooperation, in 1991 Initiated by Democratic Senator Sam Nunn and Republican Richard Lugar, a cooperative threat reduction initiative has established several laboratories in the former Soviet republics, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, for money from American taxpayers.
The purpose of these laboratories, many of which started as objects of the Soviet era, was to help scientists from the former Soviet republics take over and destroy weapons of mass destruction, including stocks of nuclear and biological weapons.
Today, this US multilateral benevolence artifact is at the forefront of improved disease surveillance, public health initiatives, and training of biosecurity experts at the forefront of their countries’ efforts to combat the coronavirus.
Igor Ivanov (left), Sam Nunn
© Itar-Tass / Scanpix
This competition is crucial for a region close to the three countries most affected by COVID-19: China, Russia and Iran. Georgia has so far managed to control the coronavirus outbreak, with the lowest COVID-19 death rate in Europe.
Additionally, Georgia plans to open its borders to tourists in July. Neighboring Armenia is worse. It now has the highest morbidity and mortality rate in the region.
The country’s prime minister, Nicholas Pashinian, and members of his family were also infected with coronavir, but recovered successfully. A second wave of infections is also reported in Kazakhstan.
Former head of state Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is still very powerful, had a positive coronavirus test on June 18. said his spokesman.
Most of these laboratories were part of the Soviet disease control system. They were founded in the Soviet Union in the 20th century. as a network of research institutes and stations to study pathogens and prevent their spread.
Some laboratories were included in the Soviet biological weapons development program in the 20th century. in the seventies and eighties. When the Soviet Union collapsed, all the labs remained unprotected, poorly financed, and in poor condition. It was feared that they could no longer continue to monitor and control disease outbreaks and that someone could catch a variety of deadly pathogens.
The S. Nunn and R. Lugar program solved these problems. It helped the New Independent States to remove the legacy of Soviet biological weapons programs and to ensure the safety and eventual destruction of the dangerous pathogens that remain after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Several laboratories have been merged, modified, and improved to better control disease outbreaks, and have become advanced US-backed public health facilities. The US Department of Defense contributed more to this project.
Richard Place
Today, the laboratories employ local experts unrelated to the military industry and are financed from national budgets. Labs pay off as needed for states that choose to trust their expertise to combat a pandemic.
The United States-sponsored laboratory in Georgia, now called the Richard G. Lugar Public Health Center, is part of the Georgia National Center for Disease Control and Public Health. The laboratory benefited the country by activating its emergency response unit in January, i. and. long before the pandemic began to spread in Europe.
In early February, the lab already had its own research methods, showing the results in 24 hours. Rapid awareness of the threat allowed Georgian public health officials to identify, quarantine, treat patients, and track who came into contact with them at the start of the crisis.
Although the first COVID-19 case was detected in Georgia (which occurred in late February), it managed to keep the number of infections and deaths low, especially compared to neighboring countries.
Center Director Richard G. Lugar, a Soviet-trained immunologist, has become a major public figure in the Georgia pandemic response process and openly criticizes the lazy attitude of the Georgian Orthodox Church toward social isolation .
His science-based approach and ability to predict the pandemic curve helped persuade the government to allow medical professionals to lead the country’s fight against the coronavirus, leading to effective depoliticization of the crisis in a historically highly fragmented country. .
A laboratory under the US program in Kazakhstan has also provided a strong and timely response to the crisis. Although the first case of COVID-19 was detected in the country only in mid-March, the laboratory activated the emergency response unit in January, and its scientists were tasked with monitoring the spread of the disease in Central Asia.
In late March, Kazakhstan had established its own coronavirus tests, the results of which will be available in five hours.
Achievements in public health and lives saved have not deterred Russia from trying to condemn the labs for their ties to the United States.
Senior Russian officials are promoting conspiracy theories that the labs belong to a secret US biological weapons infrastructure designed to spread deadly pathogens and infectious diseases.
During this propaganda campaign, laboratories are blamed for everything from Zika virus and swine flu to invasive crop shields.
The Russian government has repeatedly requested (and received) information about the laboratories, and representatives of the Russian media have been able to visit them, but this has not prevented a diplomatic dispute between Russia and Armenia over the laboratory operating there.
The laboratories also collaborate with the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and other organizations. This is clear proof that the labs are open and have nothing to hide.
They use an integrated electronic disease surveillance system to share real-time data with each other and with similar institutions in other countries.
None of the above events stopped Russia’s misinformation about the laboratories’ allegedly malicious activities. 2019 Outstanding Russian television propagandist Vladimir Solovyov called on the Russian army to launch air strikes against a laboratory in Kazakhstan.
Vladimir Solovyov
© Stop Shot
On the show, Solovyov claimed that what was happening in this laboratory could pose a threat to Russia, and offered a radical solution to “solve the problem.”
“What happens if we hit? We know where that laboratory is. Let’s hit, “he urged.
Duma member Gennady Onishchenko, who participated in the program, objected that there are about a million people living in Almaty and that the laboratory is located in the center of the city.
“High precision weapons could be used,” said Solovyov.
In January, Russian television began to insinuate that a laboratory in Georgia had somehow contributed to the coronavirus, and Russian “trolls” told similar fictional stories on social media that the Kazakh laboratory had released the virus.
In June, a Russian newspaper attacked the Uzbek Virology Institute with unbelievably false accusations that American and British researchers working at the institute had infected the population with brucellosis.
Recently, Russia joined Beijing, which began spreading similar conspiracy theories about US-backed labs. These disinformation campaigns have been strongly criticized by the governments of the countries of the region.
The benefits of US foreign policy programs are seldom seen in the daily lives of Americans. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why American society and state leaders have drifted away from the global and traditional role of the US as a dominant country in the world.
However, these labs, the result of large-scale bipartisan efforts in the United States Congress (such actions are a rarity today), recall the positive power of the United States’ leadership and its ability to improve the lives of many people. Worldwide.
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