MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. The sanitary quarantine control system at Russia’s border instituted in 2023 prevented the import of six dangerous infections into the country, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said.

"The system of sanitary quarantine control at the border made it possible in 2023 to prevent the import of six dangerous infections and preserve the health of our citizens," she said at an expanded meeting of the governing board of Russia’s public health regulator, the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor), on the results of the agency’s operations in 2023 and priorities for the period 2024-2026.

Golikova noted that she is expecting to receive proposals from Rospotrebnadzor on updating core government policies regulating chemical and biological safety, factoring in accumulated experience.

The deputy prime minister added that currently there are 153 PCR test centers in Russia, 19 mobile rapid response laboratories, 8 mobile sanitary quarantine complexes with laboratory support, and 54 sequencing centers that provide constant monitoring of the epidemiological situation and readiness to immediately respond to biological threats anywhere across the country.

"In 2023, and we are proud of this, 46 reference centers performed more than 135,000 samples, thanks to which electronic databases were created containing information on 25,000 unique strains of infectious and parasitic pathogens. By the beginning of 2025, we must increase this number to 40,000, then we will become practically comparable with one of the leading laboratories in the world, which is currently located in the United States," she said.