Georgian Health Minister visits United States
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Georgia’s Minister of Health David Sergeenko is meeting with politicians and health experts in the United States.
He held a meeting with Senator Richard Lugar and discussed Georgia-US cooperation in the field of healthcare.
Sergeenko stressed the importance of the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research that operates in Tbilisi.
"Georgia is the leader in detection of health risks in the region, and this laboratory gives us a big advantage to define precisely the origins of such risks,” Sergeenko said.
Earlier, Sergeenko spoke at a meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication in Atlanta, Georgia. He summarized the progress Georgia has achieved working to eliminate Hepatitis C.
He also visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and discussed the Hepatitis C Elimination Program with the Director of the Centre, Anne Schuchat.
Georgia’s Health Ministry has launched a new campaigned titled Cure Yourself in order to encourage the people to be tested on Hepatitis C, as the disease has no symptoms until too late.
Those living in Georgia’s occupied regions but do not hold a Georgian passport will be able to benefit from the free Hepatitis C treatment program Georgia offers its citizens.
A new modern centre for Hepatitis C management has opened in the town of Zugdidi in Georgia’s western Samegrelo region today.
US Ambassador to Georgia Ian Kelly said his country will continue supporting Georgia with its Hepatitis C elimination program.
Head of the National Centre of Disease Control (NCDC) of Georgia Amiran Gamkrelidze says that recent allegations of the Russian media and state officials regarding illegal experiments at the Tbilisi-based, US-built Lugar Laboratory are “unimaginable falsehoods and slander.”
The US Embassy in Georgia has responded to Russian allegations and reports about supposed illegal experiments conducted at the US-built, Tbilisi-based Lugar Center and stated that those accusations are “nonsense and typical of Russian misinformation and propaganda campaigns.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin says that he has heard information about genetic research being conducted at the US-built, Tbilisi-based Lugar Centre and added that if the information is valid the news is “alarming.”
Head of the Disease Control Centre of the Ministry of Health of Georgia David Gamkrelidze has stated today that 23 international experts have drafted a report regarding the US-founded Lugar lab in Tbilisi, in the wake of Russian accusations about illegal experiments being conducted at the site.