BUILDING FOUNDATION FOR FUTURE

The "Fire Eye" lab in Belgrade is the first of two to be installed by BGI in Serbia. The project is worth over 700,000 euros ($776,615), of which around 570,000 euros are donated by Chinese companies.

The second lab, soon to be installed in the southern city of Nis, will perform around 1,000 coronavirus tests a day, the Serbian government said. With these two labs, Serbia's daily testing capacity will be doubled.

It has become a consensus of scientists and experts that large-scale testing can help discover coronavirus carriers early and prevent those who are asymptomatic from spreading the virus.

Besides helping Serbia build up its response against COVID-19, the construction of the two "Fire Eye" labs, as well as future plans for cooperation with the BGI, is set to strengthen the country's healthcare system.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, who personally oversaw the project, said at the opening of the Belgrade lab on April 20 that "this is not only of immense importance for Serbia in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic, but also a fantastic foundation ... for the future of our healthcare."

"These new capacities will place us among the top two countries in the region when it comes to the scale of testing ... It will also enable us to test samples for antibodies and to determine the resilience of our population to COVID-19," Brnabic said.

Dr Jelena Begovic, director of the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering of the University of Belgrade, agreed that the laboratories will help improve the Serbian healthcare system.

"As far as I know, this is a unique laboratory in Europe and it will assist in the future for research and diagnostics of different epidemic events and diseases. We already set up a plan on what we will do in the future when it comes to research and diagnostics -- with the help of BGI from China," Begovic said.