Medical personnel from Crimea visit Chicago labs

CHICAGO - Eight medical personnel visited the laboratories at the Illinois Department of Public Health ( IDPH) on January 15 as part of an exchange program. The IDPH leadership in Springfield organized a full day of presentations by experts in microbiology and epidemiology.

All the communications cited the visitors as "Russian" although their country of origin was Ukraine, and the translators were Russian although most of the visitors understood Ukrainian.

The staff of the IDPH prepared a full day of presentations on topics such as HIV in Illinois, sexually transmitted diseases, medical care, laboratory diagnosis and mental health issues.

At the end of the day, Roman Golash, the bioterrorism laboratory manager, took the group on a tour of the facilities. Ukrainian was used to explain the role of the bioterrorism lab and how the lab functions during the anthrax attacks. Visitors were also introduced to Natalia Huminiak, who works in the laboratory. Procedures were explained and containment labs were viewed. A question and answer period followed the tour.

During the tour it was determined that the visitors actually were all Ukrainian from the Crimea region and that everyone understood Ukrainian.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 23, 2003, No. 8, Vol. LXXI

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