Page 20 - Poultry-Punch April 2020 edition

POULTRY PUNCH NEWS

PROTEON PHARMACEUTICALS, THE

PARENT COMPANY OF VETPHAGE

PHARMACEUTICALS, JOINS EFFORTS TO

FIGHT CORONAVIRUS

l Coronavirus has affected more than 4,70,000 people in the world and
caused 21, 344 deaths
l Global lockdowns have been effective in arresting movement but to beat
these epidemic countries need to ramp up testing
l WHO has asked countries to adopt its FITT strategy which is Find, Isolate,
Test and Treat to put a stop to this outbreak?

from Proteon. The goal is to conduct as people will be isolated sooner and receive
many tests as possible in the shortest appropriate treatment. This will translate
possible time to fast track the entire process into a decline in infection dynamics,” says
of diagnosis, isolation and treatment. Prof. Jarosław Dastych, CEO of Proteon
Mr. Nipun Gupta, “Our parent company Proteon Pharmaceuticals S.A.
Chief Commercial Officer at Pharmaceuticals is partnering other research India which is currently in a lockdown
Proteon institutions to put in place a highly qualified of 21 days that has restricted public
team of scientists and biotechnologists to movement too can adopt the same
work on improved testing mechanisms. measure in cooperation with Indian Council
India can also learn from this model and of Medical Research to create more and
Mumbai, March 26, 2020: Poland based rope in private research institutions and more Coronavirus Detection Centres so
biotechnology Proteon Pharmaceuticals labs in a major way to conduct efficient that more and more people are screened at
has joined efforts to fight the Covid 19 testing and research mechanisms to study a much faster pace. India’s testing rate per
pandemic by tying up with leading research about the virus. This is a good opportunity one million people was lowest at 3 as of 13
th
institutions of that country to set up new to learn from other countries’ experience March 2020.
SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus Detection Centre and implement proven solutions on our In India, private lab testing has not
in Lodz, Poland. The new research facility local ground as well. become a wide scale operation yet and
will fast track the disease testing process in Private players can help by doing government institutes can only conduct
order to significantly improve the number home collection of samples to avoid 60,000 tests a week which is too low
of test conducted. Eventually it will result in contact with people and learn from number for India’s large population.
fast diagnosis and stopping the Coronavirus Coronavirus Detection Centres like that Leading health experts have already asked
spread. of Poland to take appropriate bio-safety India to be a little more aggressive in testing
The new SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus and bio-security precautions as well as as it is the only way to emerge less scathed
Detection Centre in Lodz, Poland has been allow only laboratories with real time from this epidemic.
established to conduct large-scale tests polymerase chain reaction assay for RNA According to WHO Director-General
for virus diagnosis. The new laboratory virus to conduct Covid-19 tests as well Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus “Allowing
was created at a very fast pace with the as culture the virus,” said Dr Ramdas people to stay at home and shutting down
involvement and cooperation of the Kambale, Senior Vice President, Vetphage population is buying time and reducing the
Institute of Medical Biology of the Polish Pharmaceuticals. pressure on healthcare systems but this
Academy of Sciences, the University of “Quick and mass diagnostics is currently cannot contain the epidemic. To defeat it
Lodz, the Medical University of Lodz and the most important tool for stopping we need to attack the virus with aggressive
Proteon Pharmaceuticals. It is staffed by the growth of coronavirus infections. If testing and isolation of those affected so
a team of microbiologists, geneticists, it is possible to detect a virus infection that they get proper treatment and do not
doctors and experts, including scientists faster and on a larger scale, the infected spread it further”.

20 April, 2020