New Delhi: The central government on Tuesday set up a Science and Technology Empowered Committee to take speedy decisions on research and development of COVID-19 and to work on the anti-COVID drugs, an official said.
The committee headed by Vinod Paul, member-Niti Aayog and K Vijay Raghuban, principal scientific advisor to the government of India will also work for diagnostics, ventilators, protection gear, disinfecting systems among other crucial issues.
“The Science and Technology Empowered Committee will exclusively coordinate on the drugs, diagnostics, ventilators and other major issues related to COVID 19. Representatives from CSIR, ICMR, DRDO, and Department of Parma and important private players are also members of the committee,” said Luv Aggrawal, joint secretary in the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Meanwhile, the CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) Director-general Dr Shekhar C Mande on Tuesday said that CSIR is working on a five-pronged strategy to discover a medicine to contain the deadly Coronavirus.
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CSIR is working on a five-pronged strategy to find S&T solutions for COVID-19, comprising of surveillance using digital and molecular methods which includes genome sequencing of the virus strains across the country; cheaper, fast and accurate diagnosis methods, intervention strategies comprising of re-purposing drugs and developing new drugs, R&D in Hospital helping equipment and development of supply chain logistics models for items required for COVID-19 mitigation.
“We are working in collaboration with the private sector,” said Mande.
Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, meanwhile, had a detailed discussion on the vaccine and other logistics to counter COVID-19 with Secretary DST Dr Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary DBT Dr Renu Swarup and DG, CSIR Dr Shekhar Mande.
“Department of Biotechnology has formed a Consortium to support the development of Medical equipment, Diagnostics, Therapeutics, Drugs and Vaccines to meet the Healthcare Challenges,” said Dr Renu Swarup.
She has informed that a manufacturing facility for indigenous development of ventilators, testing kits, imaging equipment and ultrasound and high-end radiology equipment has been set up in Vishakhapatnam where manufacturing will start in the first week of April.
Dr Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary DST has informed that through mapping of the COVID-19 related technology capabilities in start-ups, academia, R&D Labs and industry, and over 500 entities in the areas of diagnostics, drugs, ventilators, protection gear, disinfecting systems, etc. have been identified.
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“Over 200 proposals have been received in the last one week against the funding calls of DST, from which over 20 entities are under active consideration for support in the first phase, taking into account the relevance, cost, speed and scale of solutions to manage COVID-19,” said Dr Sharma.
Later, Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said that research work should continue in dynamic mode simultaneously with the COVID-19 management efforts.
