Page 18 - COVID 19 Efforts 31st DEC 2020

IISc develops an optimal design of serosurvey for disease burden
estimation in a population
Indian Institute of Public Health, Bengaluru, in association with IISc Bengaluru has found a methodology by which an epidemiologist may arrive at an optimal design for a survey whose goal is to estimate the disease burden in a population. For serosurveys with a given budget of C rupees, a specified set of tests with costs, sensitivities, and specificities, it shows the existence of optimal designs in four different contexts, including the well-known c-optimal design. Obtained results are applicable to a wide range of epidemiological surveys under the assumptions that the estimate’s Fisher-information matrix satisfies a uniform positive definite criterion.
Contact Info: epigiridhar@gmail.com, rajeshs@iisc.ac.in
Website Link:
https://covid19.iisc.ac.in/covid-19-optimal-design-of-serosurvey-for-disease-burden-estimation/
IIT Mandi develops disruptive solutions to fight COVID-19
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi has done numerous research work and innovations to combat COVID-19. These include research on comparing disordered proteins in COVID-19, research on tracking the spread of COVID-19 in India via social networks, high-efficiency face masks from waste ‘PET bottles’, Wi-Fi-operated smart ventilator, UV-C disinfection box, etc.
Website Link:
http://www.iitmandi.ac.in/Newspaper_reports/index.php
IISc conducts study on the Mumbai Suburban Railway to isolate
asymptomatic spreaders
The impact of unique initiative called “Cohorting” on Mumbai Suburban Railways has been studied to reduce disease transmission. Cohorting is a concept of forming groups of travellers that always travel together, and it is to be used as an additional policy to reduce disease transmission on locals without severe restrictions. Agent-based models are being used to simulate the impact of cohorts. It provides a natural way to represent cohorts along with the representation of the cohort members with the larger social network. This paper also describes a novel multi- scale agent-based model to study the impact of cohorting strategies on COVID-19 dynamics in Mumbai. The results show that cohorts can provide significant benefit in terms of reduced transmission without significantly impacting ridership and/or economic and social activity. This is a pre-print study which has not been peer-reviewed yet.
Contact Info: rajeshs@iisc.ac.in
Website Link:
https://covid19.iisc.ac.in/cohorting-to-isolate-asymptomatic-spreaders-an-agent-based-simulation-study-on-the- mumbai-suburban-railway/
https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.12839
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