New Delhi: Shocked over the import of faulty rapid antibody testing kits from China, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday said that by May 2020, India will be self-reliant in producing rapid test and RT PCR diagnostic kits.
"The country will be self-reliant by the end of next month in producing indigenous rapid test and RT PCR diagnostic kits," said Dr Harsh Vardhan following his meeting with the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) Heads and other autonomous institutes.
Dr Vardhan said that all process is in the advanced stage and production will start after getting approval from ICMR.
"It will help us in meeting our target of one lakh test per day by May 31," said Dr Vardhan.
The health minister attended a meeting with DBT and its 18 autonomous bodies and PSUs. He asked them to fast track the development of antibody detection kits, RT PCR detection kits, and COVID-19 vaccine.
During his interaction with DBT scientists, the health minister was informed about various computational methods being developed by DBT labs to predict potential antiviral drugs molecules.
In other strategy, surrogates of the virus are being developed representing one or more critical steps in the virus lifecycle and inhibitors are being tested. Work is also in progress to isolate neutralizing antibodies either from the patient recovered from COVID-19 or human activity libraries. Also, various labs of DBT are working on development of candidate vaccines which are at various stages of pre-clinical studies with overall aim to demonstrate the proof of concept and immunogenicity and safety evaluation before clinical testing.
"At the moment, at least 9 of these studies are in early stages and one delivery and adjuvant system for improving the immunogenicity of candidate vaccine is at the advantage of development," Dr Harsh Vardhan was informed.
While discussing genetic sequencing, Dr Harsh Vardhan said, "These genetic sequencing efforts remind me of Polio eradication movement 26 years back. That time also genetic sequencing was used to establish the travel history of Poliovirus which eventually helped in the eradication of Polio," DBT secretary Dr Renu Swarup said that DBT has evolved a multi-pronged research strategy and action plan for immediate response as well as for long term preparedness to tackle COVID- 19.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan during the day also reviewed the current status of COVID-19 surveillance in Delhi along with Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Delhi health minister Satyendra Jain, MCD commissioners, DMs and DCPs of all districts of Delhi. It was discussed in the meeting that an SOP needs to be followed to ensure the safety of health workers in both COVID and non-COVID hospitals.
Meanwhile, quoting a recent survey Dr Harsh Vardhan said that 91 per cent Indians repose faith on Narendra Modi following his initiatives against COVID-19. In another development, Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan has written a letter to Chief Secretaries of States and UTs to ensure that health facilities especially those in private sector, both clinics and hospitals, do remain functional and that anyone needing any essential critical services including dialysis, blood transfusion, chemotherapy, and institutional deliveries are not denied such service.
