A laboratory technician holds a coronavirus testing tube at a drive-through testing service in New Delhi, India.
(Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)The Union Health Ministry, in a statement on Friday, April 17, said that Indian scientists and researchers are actively working on vaccine development, and that by next month, 10 lakh indigenously developed RT-PCR kits would be manufactured.
Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary Health Ministry, said the government is working with global partners on the vaccine development front and introducing it for the general public. And although it is a time-consuming process, "we are accelerating the processes involved", he said.
He added that the RT-PCR kit manufacturing work is in progress, and by May 2020, we can produce around 10 lakh rapid antibody detection kits. The real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (real time RT-PCR) test is considered one of the most accurate lab methods to detect, track and study coronavirus.
The Health Ministry official said that top government organisations—the Council for Scientific and Industrial Search, Department of Biotechnology and Science and Technology, and Department of Atomic Energy—have also contributed in the fight against novel coronavirus by providing 30 labs to enhance the overall testing for the viral infection.
The ministry said it has prioritised the indigenous manufacturing of new rapid and accurate diagnostic kits, which can provide results in 30 minutes.
"Innovative pooling strategies, limited tested to increase large numbers of people; we are focusing our efforts to increase indigenous synthesis of critical components for domestic kit production. We are also working viral sequencing, to epidemiologically identify mutation, and vaccine development and work is in progress to develop RNA-based vaccines," said Agarwal.
He said the priority is also to work on drugs for the future, while adding: "although we have many potential drugs, none of them have been proved (to completely work) so far".
"Under a multi-pronged strategy, we are working—taking into account India's indigenous knowledge—to boost the immune system. We have partnered with WHO to determine different drug therapies. A scientific task force is working to re-evaluate the existing drugs, and if required, these drugs could be re-purposed for COVID-19 use. We are working on the indigenous synthesis of anti-viral drugs", said Agarwal.
According to the Centre, of the 28,340 COVID-19 tests done on Thursday, 23,932 were conducted at 183 labs under the Indian Council of Medical Research, while the rest were done at private labs.
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