Unique infectious diseases research center in Eastern Europe to open in Romania, with isolation units for Ebola and plague

Romania will host the only bio-molecular research center for infectious diseases in Central and Eastern Europe by the end of 2015. The center will be created at the Matei Bals Infectious Diseases institute with the help of EU funds worth EUR 10.8 million. The center is currently in the project draft stage, which should be ready in two months, and will be followed by the big for construction work and equipment. A two-floored building will be erected in the existing institute’s yard, and seven modern labs will be created. Only France, Germany and UK host similar centers. Researchers at the future research center in Romania will study viruses and their mutations, which can have an important impact on the world population’s health. The center will also allow the diagnostic of diseases which previously sent patients from one medical unit to the other. The Matei Bals institute manager, doctor Adrian Streinu-Cercel, said the new center is expected to generate new research linking pathogens to diseases for which an infectious cause has never been found. The research center will also be equipped with a total isolation area with two beds for patients which pose a major risk to the community, such as those with hemorrhagic fever or plague. “Plague is a disease brought by rats, which exist in many countries including the US. In Romania rats are not contaminated so we do not have this bacillus, which is 100% contagious, and which is sensitive to gentamicin, but needs rapid diagnostic and isolation,” Streinu-Cercel explained. The most serious diseases are the hemorrhagic ones, caused by the Ebola virus, the Lassa virus and by Hantaviruses. “We have never had these, Ebola is now spread in Africa, but we have to be ready, especially as it is an airborne disease. When such a pathogen enters a region, things get very complicated, public health wise,” the doctor further details. The center will be staffed with 13 researchers, and the Health Ministry will provide funding for salaries. Six researchers currently work at the Matei Bals National Institute for Infectious Diseases. The center has 180,000 patients a year. editor@romania-insider.com