RDIF, Russian Tech Firms Launch Anti-Coronavirus Alliance

Russian internet companies Yandex and Mail.ru Group, the country’s Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), have announced the creation of an alliance against the coronavirus, Kommersant reports.

According to a press release from Moscow, the main objective of the alliance is to ensure “operational testing of the population using the best available technologies,” as well as “industrial safety and uninterrupted operation of Russia’s largest enterprises.”

Leading Russian clinics and laboratories will take part in the project, and the alliance had proposed a series of regulatory changes for prompt testing of people. These changes have been approved by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

The RSPP “will actively participate in the work of the Center for Expertise on Testing and Application of World Practices to Combat Coronavirus, created by RDIF,” the press release said.

It added that an approved Russian-Japanese testing system “is a unique solution, one of the most effective in diagnostics COVID-19, with high mobility, accuracy and speed of testing.” It reduces testing time from two or more hours to 30 minutes.

The range of test systems is adapted both for stationary laboratories and for unique portable mini-laboratories, and is ready to be used everywhere.

“One of the key conditions for defeating the coronavirus is to combine the efforts of leading institutions and companies with expertise on a wide range of issues,” RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev said.