A mobile biological laboratory has been developed by the Electronics, Logistics and Property Management Company (HM EI Zrt) of the MoD that can be used both for special defence and civil protection purposes.
At the demonstration of the laboratory in Budapest Minister of Defence Mr Csaba Hende said the objective was to revitalise the Hungarian defence industry – disintegrated after the disbanding of the Warsaw Pact – as a cluster around new products and innovations under the leadership of HM EI Zrt.
The Minister of Defence of Hungary reminded that in the past few years several defence industry developments had been made which were put in use not only for military but also for civil-protection purposes. As an example he mentioned the UAVs, having provided assistance with flood control operations in June, which had been developed at a significantly lower cost than other types purchasable in the world market.
As Mr Hende said it was thanks to the water purification containers of the HDF that the European Union did not impose a HUF 17 billion fine on Hungary. As the Minister of Defence said, between 2001 and 2010 no real progress was made in the field of the removal of arsenic contaminants from ground waters in Hungary, required by the EU. The MoD and its institutions provided assistance to the government and producing some 200 water-purification containers they deployed them in various parts of Hungary, primarily with the involvement of voluntary reservists.
Mr Hende called the Mobile Biological Laboratory Complex a new success of reviving Hungarian defence industry. As he emphasised, the only job that remained was to export this development to as many countries of the world as possible. The revenues from such exporting can all be spent on the HDF and defence matters, the minister added. Director General of HM EI Zrt. Mr Lajos Móró said the making of the biolab took nearly five years with mainly government funding, totalling approximately HUF 1 billion. Several countries are inquiring about the lab including Russia, China and India, he added. Project leader Ms Ágnes Nagy said, their development meets the highest-level standards, the so called BSL-4 biological security level. It is also easy and quick to transport, can be deployed in any part of the world and it can be ready to process samples within one hour after landing in the area of operations.
The laboratory is deployable for special military NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) defence purposes and for civil epidemiological, public health, animal health, food-safety, disaster-relief, and biological defence missions thus contributing to managing civil threats, the project manager said.
(Ministry of Defence)
