Rio Tinto and Oyu Tolgoi invests US$602,000 for COVID-19 readiness and recovery in Mongolia

In order to support the efforts to fight COVID-19 and its social and
economic impacts, Rio Tinto and Oyu Tolgoi are investing a further
US$602,000 – or ~MNT1.7 billion – in a project across Mongolia with
focus on increasing the resilience and response capability of the
country.

Rio Tinto and Oyu Tolgoi are partnering with United
Nations Population Fund and its local and national stakeholders to
support essential preventative measures during this challenging time.

Amarjargal
Khenchbish, deputy country director for Rio Tinto Mongolia, said, “At
Rio Tinto, our focus is on the health and safety of our employees and
the communities where we operate and on keeping our operations running
safely during the times of pandemic, so we can continue to contribute to
local and national economies and serve our customers.

“We’re
pleased to be partnering with UNFPA in our joint efforts to improve
COVID-19 and infectious disease diagnosis, early detection as well as
telemedicine service capacity in Mongolia.” Oyu Tolgoi’s chief executive
officer, Armando Torres, said, “This pandemic is testing our
resilience as a community while we work hard on the business continuity
in the challenging circumstances. So, we want to continue to do our part
in the readiness and preparedness measures to increase resilience of
the communities so we can overcome the social and economic hardships
together. After all, we are all in this together.”

An overall aim

of the partnership is to continue building capacity of health facilities

serving the underprivileged and high-risk populations to accurately

diagnose COVID-19 and other infections, and to provide telemedicine

services for high-risk patients and pregnant women requiring regular

medical checkups by specialists amid COVID-19 pandemic.

Appendix

Expected outcomes as a result of the investment:

Increased diagnostic capacity

Diagnostic
services for COVID-19 in Umnugobi Regional Diagnosis and Treatment
Centre, Dornogobi General Hospital, the COVID-19/Ulaanbaatar City
Maternal and Children’s Hospital, and National Centre for Mother and
Child Health will be established:

• Procure laboratory equipments
  • three
    thermocyclers for Umnugobi RDTC, Dornogobi General Hospital, and the
    COVID-19/UB City Maternal and Children’s Hospital (NCMCH has a
    thermocycler)
  • four negative pressure biosafety cabinets or PCR hoods
  • four micro centrifuges for DNA work
  • four minus 70 degrees’ Celsius freezers
  • DNA/RNA extraction kits
  • COVID-19 primers and seed PCR reagents

Upgrade
laboratories of the above facilities to meet the international
standards of infectious disease diagnosis, and provide necessary
equipments.

Provide training for laboratory staff in collaboration with WHO funded through European Union.

Telemedicine

Health and wellbeing of persons requiring regular checkups by medical specialists will be protected:

• Develop
  a guideline for providing outreach health care by grassroots health
  workers to facilitate contacts and online counselling by medical
  specialists in maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, as well
  as in internal medicine, endocrinology and mental health.
• Provide
  grassroots health care provider kits for community health workers at
  baghs of Umnugobi and Dornogobi, and ger areas of Songinokhairkhan
  district of Ulaanbaatar. The kit is described as per Health Minister’s
  Order A291 of the year 2020 and includes:
  • Portable tablets with internet access
  • Pulse oximeter
  • Weight scale
  • Sphygmomanometer or blood pressure gauge
  • Fetal stethoscope
  • Thermometer
  • Blood sugar and cholesterol rapid tests

Training
for health care providers on the provision of remote ANC services and
utilization of Zoom or Mn.Obstetrics software or equivalents approved by
the MOH.

Earlier initiatives Oyu Tolgoi committed

Oyu
Tolgoi and its employees donated MNT455 million to support the COVID-19
outbreak prevention efforts, including MNT100 million to the Government
of Mongolia through the Mongolian National Mining Association, MNT200
million to the Umnugovi Emergency Committee, and MNT10 million to the
Khanbogd Emergency Committee through the Gobi Oyu Development Support
Fund. Oyu Tolgoi miners also launched a donation campaign and raised
over MNT145 million, which was donated to the Ministry of Health.
Employees from thirty-eight contractor companies joined the campaign as
#WeAreAllInThisTogether.

Notes to editors

The
US$602,000 partnership is part of a commitment Rio Tinto has made to
support communities around the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic and
recovery. For more information, please visit: https://www.riotinto.com/news/covid-19