Strengthening the company’s capacity to identify infectious agents, Central Laboratory has invested one million euros in the purchase of molecular biological testing equipment.
By developing the Department of Molecular Biology, Central Laboratory how to Covid-19 In addition to the existing technologies, the diagnostician in Latvia has purchased a world-renowned, widely used and the only Chemagic 360-D (Perkin Elmer) device in the Baltics, which is suitable not only for Covid-19 examinations, but also for the detection of tick-borne diseases.
The Cobas 6800 System (Roche Diagnostics), on the other hand, allows a larger sample flow to be processed on a daily basis and maintains the quality of Covid-19 testing. Technologies of this class are starting to be used in Latvia directly under the influence of a pandemic. For their use to be cost-effective, there is a sufficient demand for molecular tests and they are commonly used in large populations.
“It is a fully automated molecular biology device – a system that determines the genetic material of pathogens. There are very few such devices in our region because they are designed for a large flow of samples and are relatively expensive. This system can work around the clock and is available 24 hours a day. “We are currently testing Covid-19 with the new equipment, but in the future this technology could be used to detect influenza, HIV, hepatitis and other infectious agents,” says Central laboratories board member Yelena Storozhenko.
Due to the pandemic, the need for diagnostic services has significantly increased, and the demand is active both on weekends and holidays, in work teams and in various other hitherto inexperienced situations.
“The functionality of these technologies already significantly facilitates the management of daily work processes and allows to improve the efficiency of the company, which is vital in our case, considering that on weekdays we perform about 30% and on weekends about 48% of all Covid-19 analyzes in Latvia.” reveals J. Storozhenko.
“When evaluating investment objects, we pay great attention to automation, because it eliminates the need for manual work in managing complex processes, thus minimizing the impact of the human factor on testing. The winners are everyone – customers receive test results faster, is engaged in the management and maintenance of this equipment, must be at a high professional level, so we work with partners from Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain and other European countries, training and updating the qualifications of our laboratory specialists, “points out J. Sttorozhenko.
Central Laboratory has been working in the industry since 1994. Currently, the sample logistics covers the entire territory of Latvia, there is a mobile sampling team at home, a call center and 36 Covid-19 analysis transfer points, which are also located throughout Latvia, while the number of branches reaches 65. The company offers the widest range of laboratory analysis services, specialist consultations and Approximately 6.5 million analyzes are performed during the year.
BE Central Laboratory is one of the group of health companies Repharm companies. Repharm also includes AS Association of Health Centers, brand Moon pharmacy manager joint stock company Sentor farm pharmacy, as well as the pharmaceutical wholesaler AS Recipe plus and AS of the manufacturer of herbal medicines Riga Pharmaceutical Factory.
–
