Speed Post News Network
New Delhi : Minister of Science &Technology, Earth Sciences and Health & Family Welfare, Dr Harsh Vardhan, on July 30, 2020, announced that Indian scientists from DBT & CSIR have sequenced more than 1,000 SARS-CoV-2 viral genomes making it the largest effort in the country. “This will help in understanding the prevalent strains and the mutation spectrum in India, which will help in diagnostics, drugs and vaccine,” he said.
Dr Vardhan was speaking while releasing a compendium of Covid-19 technologies and products developed by CSIR at a function here. The compendium covers a wide range of technologies and products spanning from diagnostics to drugs to ventilators and PPEs with more than 100 technologies, 93 industry partners listed., and over 60 of these technologies having been transferred to industry.
Dr Vardhan observed, “The portfolio of technologies and products developed in a short time are a testament to the capabilities of CSIR scientists.” He complimented the efforts of the scientists, students and staff of CSIR for developing these technologies and products at such short notice in these challenging conditions.
He said, “The compendium brought out by CSIR captures the technologies and products well at one place and can help industries and other agencies who are seeking solutions for Covid-19 to access them easily.” The Minister said, “CSIR has made significant contributions to India’s fight against Covid-19 on various fronts ranging from augmenting testing capacity to developing novel diagnostics, and making affordable repurposed drugs available to patients in partnership with industry.”
Dr Vardhan also complimented the role of CSIR in bringing repurposed drugs against Covid-19 to patients at the earliest in partnership with industry such as Cipla for Favipiravir. He emphasised that efforts such as these will benefit Covid19 patients by making the drugs affordable.
“CSIR-IICT has developed a cost-effective synthetic process technology for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) of Favipiravir using locally available chemicals and transferred the technology to Cipla who scaled up and manufactured the drug based on this technology,” he said, according to a PIB release.
The Minister also highlighted the contribution of CSIR-NAL, whose expertise though is in aviation, which developed Swasth Vayu, a non-invasive BiPAP ventilator, in a short span of 36 days. Dr Vardhan exhorted the scientific community to come together and develop new innovations, technologies and products at this time of need as it is only S&T that can deliver us out of this pandemic and also fulfill the aspirations of ‘Aatma Nirbhar Bharat’.
DG CSIR, Dr Shekhar C Mande, said that CSIR has partnered with not only large industries such as TATA Sons, Reliance Industries but also with PSUs such as BHEL and BEL and MSMEs for the deployment of the technologies and products at the earliest. He highlighted that CSIR has developed a Covid-19 Portal that captures these technologies in an easily searchable format for users.