With outbreaks of new viral agents becoming a common phenomena particularly in view of recent H1N1 crisis that gripped the nation, the Health Ministry has proposed establishing over a Rs 500-crore network of 160 laboratories for diagnosis of viral and other infectious diseases across the country.
The proposal, which also aims to manage natural calamities and bio-terrorism, would come up for approval before the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Thursday, a senior Health Ministry official said.
At present, there are only two laboratories well equipped to deal with all kinds of viruses at National Centre for Disease Control in Delhi and the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune in the country.
The proposal envisages setting up of a network of laboratories will be in medical colleges, States and different regions to help in increased medical research in view of spread of unknown viral diseases across the country within the next three years.
“A three-tier structure for such labs with establishment of 120 of them in Government medical colleges have been proposed where the teachers will be involved in innovation and research and another 30 at the State-level,” the
official said.
Similarly, 10 national level labs are being proposed at the regional level across the country and will equipped with hi-tech facility and expected to carry out serology, RT-PCR, isolation, fluorescence microscopy, tissue culture and sequencing for all enlisted viruses.
In the context of biological agents being used as weapons for man-made disaster and also outbreaks of new viral agents, such network and active research programme will be important to generate evidence for interventions for various viral infections, which are endemic to the country, said the official.
Besides, these labs will also be expected to develop capacity for identification of novel/unknown viruses and other organisms and emerging-reemerging viral strains etc and develop diagnostic kits.
District level laboratories will facilitate early diagnosis of all the identified viruses so that the intervention/treatment if available could be provided without losing valuable time. It will also strengthen the surveillance/ monitoring of viral diseases, said the officer.
These labs will be completed within the next three years following the approval from the Cabinet.