Urguu Maternity Hospital opened a molecular laboratory on 19 September 2022 with support of the project on ‘Safeguarding maternal, sexual, and reproductive health and rights during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mongolia’, funded by the Government of Luxembourg and executed by UNFPA.

During the opening of the laboratory, UNFPA Mongolia Head of Office Dr. Khalid Sharifi said, “Promoting access to quality maternal health and ending preventable maternal and newborn mortality are at the very core of UNFPA’s Global Mandate and Country Programme in Mongolia. The COVID-19 global pandemic has posed new challenges to maternal health, including the need for rapid diagnosis and management of infection, which continues to deteriorate the health of women during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum. This laboratory is not just for COVID-19. It will advance the capacity to identify a number of infections that affect sexual and reproductive health leading to adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes.”

The laboratory consists of 22 types of equipment, furniture, and consumables worth approximately 350 million MNT. The laboratory equipment was supplied by LifeTronik LLC and enables molecular biology diagnostics, which has many health service applications, including early detection and prevention of STIs and cervical cancer.

Under the project on “Safeguarding maternal, sexual, and reproductive health and rights during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mongolia” two more molecular diagnostic laboratories will be established at maternity hospitals in Ulaanbaatar, which deliver services to more than 30,000 women a year.

Globally, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sexual and reproductive health has been widely documented due to disruptions in supply chain management of contraceptives and delays in quality specialist care and diagnostics and early detection of maternal complications. Therefore, setting up advanced molecular biology diagnostics will improve the quality of diagnostic and treatment services to ensure safe pregnancy and delivery.

With the partnership of the Luxembourg Development Cooperation Agency, UNFPA supports the Ministry of Health’s efforts to end preventable maternal deaths and end the unmet need for family planning in Mongolia.

UNFPA in Mongolia

UNFPA Mongolia began supporting the Government of Mongolia in the late 1970s providing equipment and training to the Central Statistics Office to undertake the Population and Housing Census of 1979 – and again in 1989. Support for maternal and child health began in the early 1990s and included training for medical personnel and the provision of modern contraceptives.

The first comprehensive Country Programme between the Government of Mongolia and UNFPA officially started in 1992 and focused on the delivery of family planning services and information, and the promotion of population data usage to support the government’s development policies and programmes.

UNFPA’s 6th Country Programme in Mongolia was launched in 2017 with focus on youth participation, realizing the sexual and reproductive health and rights of youth, and addressing gender-based violence. The current Country Programme is supporting Mongolia to achieve the SDGs and is closely aligned and implemented with other UN agencies under the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2017-2022.

Source: UNFPA Mongolia