Less than 0.05 per cent of positive cases in India are mapped. The number should be five per cent of all samples

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the lack of a data-driven ecosystem in the country's healthcare system. Much as we appreciate the transformative potential of genomics science, it is a resource-intensive work. Over the last few decades, Genomics has evolved to a new level. In this era of rapid sequencing, the ability to determine DNA sequences is starting to outrun the ability of researchers to store, transmit and analyze data. Such studies need adept data management to make sense of genome mapping and work towards epidemiological goals.

Genomic surveillance is the best we can do to track the virus and prepare defenses against it. Analyzed genomic information needs to be combined with clinical/epidemiological inputs to yield insights for public health interventions. This process needs a high level of laboratory infrastructure andis expensive. Convergence of biology and computing is necessary for this relatively obscure technology (genomic analysis) for writing thealgorithms and developing software applications, whichenable pre-sequencing raw clinical data processing and analysis of post-sequencing data.The strong ties between DNA and Computer Science have revolutionized the biological/medical fields in the last couple of decades. Essentially a biologist and a programmer should work closely to facilitate the development of tools and systems that can answer a biological question. Many public health laboratories may not have the right bioinformatics capability and data management resources. As we know detecting mutations or variations can identify the cause of outbreaks: the virusbehavior - the fast spreading or the immune escaping variants — guide public health policies, and even find a cure or inform vaccine researchers.  Apart from the public sector regional labs identified by the Genetic Consortium, a couple of private Indian companies have made their way to the world's top 10 list in genomic science. The IT giants of India have one or two genomics labs each and with world-class infrastructure handling liquid biopsies and doing work mostly in NGS (next-generation sequencing).I believe,these capabilities in India's IT sector cangreatly help in Covid-19 management, enablingdelivery of standardizedgenomic data,catching up with the required GISAID or Gen Bankdata contribution requirement for the country, and supporting the NCDC (National Centre for Disease Control).

By now, India should have sequenced more than five million samples to have a good understanding of the virus and its strains, but so far 11,047 sequences were performed (of the 1.4 million samples sequenced worldwide), according to GISAID. Currently, less than 0.05 per cent of positive cases in India are subjected to genome mapping while the recommended number is five per cent of all samples. Countries like UK, the US, and Belgiumare doing wholegenomic sequencing in real- time. Sequencing demands good quality pre-sequencing data and metadata in the right format to accompany the samples sent for evaluation. The unavailability of metadata along with Covid-19 samples sent for genome evaluationis a concern which I believe is because of data privacy or ethics issues. The authorities should address this the soonest and enable the collection of relevant epidemiological data (demographic, clinical, and laboratory) through public health workers in the right format and share it-anonymized or as-is with patient consent — with the laboratories where the samples are sent for analysis. The pandemic has ushered in a new digital era and is rewiring the world’s perspective to genomic science and sensibilities to personal data privacy in public health management. Governments around the globe are imposing new digital surveillance tools to track and monitor individuals' adherence to new pandemic norms as well as the morphology of the virus for variations to bolster defenses against the novel virus.

(The writer is an author and a doctor by profession. The views expressed are personal)