Public health institutes throughout Serbia have long been facing a lack of adequate conditions for safe work in accordance with microbiological safety standards. The dedicated and expert staff's efforts to deliver high-quality public health services in the existing conditions are daily constrained by the deterioration of their workspace, as well as the lack of modern equipment and resources.

With the support of non-refundable funds from the European Union, in the amount of over 5 million euros, abovementioned practices will soon become a thing of the past. The reconstruction of laboratories at the Institute of Public Health "Dr Milan Jovanović - Batut," as well as at the regional institutes in Niš and Kragujevac, will begin early next year. The reconstruction of laboratories and the procurement of the equipment will last one year, and this important task has been entrusted to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO). The EU, within the project "Strengthening the capacity of Serbia’s health sector for communicable disease surveillance" has allocated an additional 3 million euros for the procurement of equipment that will be placed in the reconstructed laboratories and ensure significantly higher quality of work.