Two EU Mobile Labs redeployed to Sierra Leone against Ebola

Within the EU Comprehensive Response Framework to the West Africa Ebola outbreak, the European Commission has stepped up its efforts by reinforcing the budget for the deployment of mobile laboratories for the diagnosis of the virus (plus 2.4 million euros). The total contribution for the European Mobile Laboratories deployment has now reached 8 million euros. 

EU Mobile lab currently located to Nigeria will be deployed to Sierra Leone, including local staff trained through the project

Under the advice of the World Health Organization (WHO), two mobile lab units are now being re-deployed from Nigeria and Liberia to the capital of Sierra Leone (Freetown), where the situation is getting all the more critical with Ebola cases still increasing. 

The third mobile unit remains in Guinea (Guéckédou) where it first arrived in March 2014. All EU mobile labs being placed close to treatment units ran by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the European Mobile Labs can provide sample diagnoses within 3-4 hours. The laboratories are run by teams of EU and African specialists trained under the European Mobile Labs initiative.