THE GUARDTECH GROUP are changing the face of international cleanroom provision for UK companies – having recently installed a ground-breaking Biotech facility in Djibouti, East Africa.

The contamination control experts, who are headquartered in Suffolk but boast a new large-scale manufacturing facility in Norfolk, designed and constructed a 330sqm non-classified Biotech lab for Oxitec.

After a lengthy shipping process, that saw the 11 pre-fabricated cleanroom container modules change vessels three times and stop off in Europe and the Middle East, the Cleancube facility was eventually installed in a desert compound in Djibouti.

Oxitec scientists will now use the laboratory to work with genetically modified mosquitoes, with the aim of reducing the number of malaria-carrying female insects in order to combat the spread of the deadly disease in the territory.

The experience has come with numerous difficulties, but the end result has made all the effort worthwhile for Guardtech Commercial Director Mark Wheeler, who revealed that the project was essentially undertaken as a 'non-profit' exercise for Guardtech.

He said: "The client's budget was restricted – they were working from high-profile international charitable donations, so our approach was to find a way to make it work and to support the client's aims.

"This has been what we'd consider a cost-neutral project – we weren't looking to make money from it. For us, there were bigger and wider objectives we wanted to achieve.

"Working in Africa comes with significant challenges, and each country presents its own. Djibouti, for example, is incredibly hot – our team was working in temperatures around 40C. We had to adjust to night shifts and find ways to keep as cool as possible. On top of that, the infrastructure doesn't always support construction well – utilities have to be routed in, drainage has to be brought in and electricity can be hard to come by. Despite those challenges, the project has been incredibly rewarding because of its objectives – potentially saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in East Africa."

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Wheeler and the Cleancube team are now planning to use everything they’ve learned from the project to take the brand forward in the international market.

For him, the future is "exciting" – citing the "ripple effect" it could have beyond the project.

"Could it spread further into the rest of Africa? It's possible," he added. "We're actually already working on other malaria-related projects in the UK. This feels like a first step – a small but significant start.

"The potential is huge. We're fortunate to work on a range of life-saving projects, whether in healthcare settings like chemotherapy processing suites or in emerging technologies such as battery systems that positively impact livelihoods. There"s a lot of excitement about what’s ahead, and this feels like the beginning of something very promising."

Wheeler praised the immense effort from Associate Director of Manufacturing, Michael Burton, and the Cleancube team for the countless hours they spent on making the dream become a reality, including overtime shifts over the 2024 Christmas period to ensure the modules made it to Africa on time.

"The team were amazing – really amazing," he continued. "Djibouti is a challenging environment, both for construction and scientific work. The idea behind this Cleancube was to have a module that meets British standards and compliance requirements, but that can also be shipped using the standard shipping network. The container is certified after being manufactured in the UK, then broken down into individual components.

"It's the same principle for any international Cleancube project – it’s shipped overseas and reassembled out there in the territory. The advantage is that around 90-95% of the build – mechanical, electrical, and architectural – is completed in the UK, here in Norfolk. It’s then disassembled, shipped through the normal network and reconnected onsite.

"The Cleancube format is attractive because the modules conform to standard shipping classifications. Other, more bespoke modules can be much more costly to ship. That's one of the key reasons this construction approach was chosen for the Djibouti project and why it's sure to become a really attractive prospect for more and more international clients in the future.”

For more information on the Guardtech Group's various solutions, email [email protected], visit www.guardtech.com or call 0330 113 0303.

To discover more about Cleancube Mobile Cleanrooms, visit www.cleancube.co.uk – or to book a Cleancube Showroom, call 0330 113 0303 or email [email protected].