Kerala: Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurates Institute of Advanced Virology

In the initial phase, researches on COVID-19 samples would be conducted at the newly inaugurated Institute of Advanced Virology.

Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated the Institute of Advanced Virology (IAV) at Thonnakkal in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday.

Inaugurating the institute, the chief minister the functioning of this it would strengthen the works towards preventing contagious diseases like COVID-19. The institute can help in the prevention and transmission of such diseases, he added.

The construction works of the institute were completed in three years. Dr Akhil C Banerjee took charge as the director of IAV and Dr Mohanan Valiya Veettil assumed charge as the senior principal scientist. Eighteen job positions have been created at the institute.

Facilities including gel documentation system, biosafety level cabinets, carbon dioxide incubator, centrifuge, electrophoresis, water bath system and nano photo metre have been set up at the institute in Thonnakkal Life Science Park.

Detailed and expert level examination of the COVID-19 samples and related studies would be done in the initial phase at the institute. The institute has been promised co-operation from other major virology institutes in the country.