PhosAgro helps to combat coronavirus

PhosAgro together with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and EMG promptly delivered 100 latest Russian-Japanese rapid-result coronavirus testing kits to Apatity and Kirovsk (Murmansk Region).

In the city of Apatity (Murmansk Region), a patient with a suspected coronavirus infection was identified, who had previously tested positive for the virus and is awaiting additional checking. The patient had come back from a holiday in Cuba and upon his return was taken to the Apatity-Kirovsk city hospital with complaints about his condition.

The emergency response team was immediately assembled under the leadership of the Head of Apatity, Nikolai Bova. In the shortest possible time, the circle of people who the patient had communicated with was determined; all of them will have to go into quarantine. The premises in which the Apatite patient had been were also deep cleaned. All the necessary anti-epidemic measures are being implemented.

Following the meeting of the municipal team, Nikolai Bova recommended that enterprises and organizations of the city strictly adhere to the decisions of the Governor of the Murmansk region Andrey Chibis, the decisions of the emergency response team on the epidemiological safety of the Murmansk Region, and also use the sanitary-epidemiological work regulations developed at the Kirovsk Branch of Apatit.

In particular, the regulation provides for the daily duty of medical assistants and an HR specialist at the staff and visitors pass desk. An employee who returned from vacation must fill out a check-list aimed at finding out the place of vacation and identifying signs of an acute respiratory viral disease to be admitted to the workplace. If it is established that the employee spent the vacation abroad, the employee is sent to self-isolation for 2 weeks from the moment of crossing the Russian border.

In addition, unprecedented sanitary and epidemiological measures have been taken at the Kirovsk Branch of Apatit for two weeks: in order to prevent coronavirus sobriety breath testing at the checkpoints to the enterprise units was cancelled; about 400 workers of the plant and subsidiaries were sent home to work remotely. Additional preventive measures have been taken in workshop canteens and industrial premises, they have been deep cleaned, and air disinfection equipment as well as hand sanitizer dispensers have been installed.

By the end of the week, several thousand more similar tests are expected to be delivered, after which an active preventive examination of the employees of the Kirovsk Branch of Apatit and the residents of the Kirovsk-Apatity district will begin.

Thus, the Kirovsk Branch of Apatit and the entire Kirovsk-Apatity district will become the first platform in Russia for the use of the new Russian testing system, already approved by Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare and leading Russian and international organizations, including the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR.

According to the PhosAgro CEO Andrey Guryev, testing coronavirus suspected patient zero in the Kirovsk-Apatity district and his close circle, provided that the diagnosis is confirmed, will quickly identify infected people in the early stages of the disease, isolate them, and reduce risks of further spread of the infection through a chain reaction to healthy people. And this should be the first significant anti-epidemic barrier, especially at enterprises playing an important role in the country’s economy and provide the necessary experience for the widespread introduction of such regulations.