Dairy producer Yili Group hands over six mobile COVID-19 nucleic acid test labs to Hohhot. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Chinese dairy industry giant Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, or Yili Group, has donated six COVID-19 mobile nucleic acid test labs, worth 30 million yuan ($4.76 million), to Hohhot, capital of North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, helping the city in its battle against the novel coronavirus.

The six pop-up Yili labs had all been pressed into use as of Feb 28.

Being integrated and automated, they can undertake large volumes of testing and have the added advantage of being very mobile.

The pop-up labs can provide nucleic acid testing for 15,000 single samples per day and pool testing for 150,000 people.

Six Yili pop-up test labs have all started operating in Hohhot city. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Inside the labs, there are reagent preparation rooms, sample processing rooms, PCR amplification rooms and decontamination rooms, with each area independent of each other.

Test personnel can complete sample processing, nucleic acid extraction, amplification and other test work in the cabins, which can save time in sampling, sample deliveries and testing in stages.

As a leader of China's dairy industry, it is widely said that Yili has always responded promptly when major incidents occur and that it shoulders its social responsibilities.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, Yili has invested a total of 280 million yuan in virus prevention and controls. Some 60 million yuan was donated to the China Red Cross Foundation alone, to support epidemic prevention and controls in Inner Mongolia and in Hohhot.

Since the outbreak of the current round of the epidemic in Hohhot, Yili has donated anti-epidemic materials five times to provide nutritional support and donated 100 million yuan on Feb 25. To date, Yili Group has donated 380 million yuan to the country's fight against the epidemic.