CORONAVIRUS UNIT

MERCOSUR has approved an emergency fund for the coordinated fight against COVID-19

The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation through the Institute of Biomedicine of CONICET managed the first stage of the disbursement for PCR diagnostic kits in coordination with the Ministry of Health of Argentina.


MERCOSUR has approved the sum of additional US$ 16,000,000 for the multinational project “Research, Education and Biotechnologies applied to Health,” which will support the coordinated fight against COVID-19. These resources, which will be financed through the ‘MERCOSUR Structural Convergence Fund (FOCEM)’, are not refundable and charged with interests to face the pandemic in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay mainly in their diagnosis aspects.

Through the Institute of Biomedicine of CONICET (member of the Net of Biomedicine of FOCEM-Mercosur, created in 2011), the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation managed the first stage of the disbursement for PCR diagnostic kits in coordination with the Ministry of Health of Argentina.

The first tranche of US$ 5,800,000 (from which Argentina received 1,2 millions) will be destined to reinforce the capacity of diagnosis of the virus with the purchase of equipment, supplies, materials for the protection of the operators and kits for quick detection. Besides, the new funds will help to develop the serodiagnosis technique that detects the response of antibodies in symptomatic and asymptomatic patients in order to know the degree of penetration of the pandemic in the population.

The FOCEM Project, approved in 2011, has the joint participation of the member state founders of MERCOSUR: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. As part of this initiative, a network between prestigious research institutions in the area of regional public health was developed: the Biomedicine Research Institute of Buenos Aires (IBIOBA-CONICET-MPSP) of Argentina, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) of Brazil, the Laboratorio Central de Salud Pública (LCSP) y CEDIC in Paraguay and the Institut Pasteur of Montevideo in Uruguay. This network provided a quick response and coordination of resources to meet the demands of this pandemic.

 

About Coronavirus Unit

The Coronavirus Unit, which comprises the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, CONICET and the National Agency for the promotion of Research, Technological Development and Innovation, aims at providing the Argentine health service with technological development, human resources, infrastructure, equipment required to perform tasks linked to diagnosis and research on COVID-19.

Source: Ministry of Sciencce, Technology and Innovation