The late Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana was a beloved member of the U.S. Senate from 1982–2012. He was a pillar of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he advocated for some of the most important legislation of our age, including the notable Nunn–Lugar Act, which sought the dismantling of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Tracking and controlling dangerous pathogens in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR was the instinct propelling his initiative to help create the now famous laboratory in Tbilisi that bears his name: the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research.
Opened in 2011 and fully operational by 2013, the Lugar Center today symbolizes the very essence of the U.S.–Georgia relationship. With generous initial American investment of $350 million—and since 2018 part of Georgia’s National Center for Disease Control and Public Health and fully funded by the Georgian government—the laboratory has played a central role in Georgia’s widely praised effort to confront the COVID-19 pandemic head-on with advanced preparation, solid science, modern technology, and hard work. Georgia, notes America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “has become a model country for public health and global health security.” The Lugar Center is at the heart of this success. (See Diaries, below). This is precisely why the Lugar Center was created, according to the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi. On May 8, Ambassador Kelly Degnan announced an additional $3 million in U.S. support for Georgia’s offensive against the pandemic.
The Lugar Center quickly mobilized to address the pandemic as it found its way to Georgian soil. As a crossroads for all points on the compass, Georgia rapidly identified transmission belts from Asia, the Middle East, Russia, and Europe. The Lugar Center quickly became the main testing and diagnostic facility for the country. The number of tests daily will soon equal Germany’s, which is the source of Georgia’s advanced “fever center” know-how. Of particular note is the Center’s ability to use state-of-the-art genetic sequencing to detect the origins of various infections, capabilities rare in this part of the world.
While praise for Georgia’s handling of the pandemic and, in particular, the Lugar Center’s central role, from medical authorities like America’s Dr. Anthony Fauci and foreign leaders like Emmanuel Macron, Russia’s propaganda machine, often echoed by China’s, increased the tempo and intensity of its long-standing narrative that the Lugar Center is not only the pivot point of an American conspiracy to conduct biological weapons planning against Russia, but it could even be the place the COVID-19 virus was manufactured. Russian media repeatedly assert that the Lugar Center is “a nest of viruses,” that it tests illegally on Georgian citizens, that it is responsible for diverse virus outbreaks, including Ebola, and probably even the toxins used in the U.K. on former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
Strong voices at home and from abroad have condemned the Russian propaganda effort. Meanwhile the Lugar Center’s remarkable professionals target COVID-19 relentlessly, a fight for which they, and their Center, were destined.