On December 1-5, 2025 Dmitry Polev, Head, Metagenomic Research Laboratory, Anna Maikova, researcher, Alina Saitova and Roman Vlasik, junior researchers, visited the National Public Health Laboratory of the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville).
During the visit, the Russian scientists assisted their Congolese colleagues in identifying errors in protocols of isolation, identification, and storage of pathogenic bacterial isolates causing acute intestinal infections. The scientists jointly analyzed the practical implementation of protocols for all stages of pathogenic bacterial strain isolation – from clinical specimen culture to cryopreservation of pure cultures. Recommendations were made for optimizing protocols and modifying work techniques to achieve more reliable and reproducible results. Particular attention was paid to streamlining labor costs and test system consumption during colony screening for the isolation of pure cultures of the target pathogens. A critical consideration was the need to preserve (cryopreserve) isolates only after obtaining clonal cultures of the target pathogen. Ready-to-use sterile Petri dishes with agar media were delivered from the Republic of Congo to verify the quality of bacterial culture media preparation.
During the joint activities, difficulties were also noted for local specialists who implement Russian equipment, such as the DT Prime 5 real-time PCR system, due to the supply of a control PC with a Russian-language Windows interface and no language-changing capability. When supplying equipment from domestic manufacturers, it is recommended that all systems be equipped with an English-language interface and compatibility with locally available consumables be clarified.
