Page 63 - Covid 2021 June 2021

Ray. It has been created by the same CSIR team that in April last year designed ‘FELUDA’, a paper- based COVID-19 test named after the fictional detective that Ray had created.
The RAY test has been developed at a time when countries across the world are actively scrutinising international travellers for new variants of the COVID-19 virus, such as the variant identified in the UK, which spreads faster than the original SARS-CoV-2 variant.
Contact Info: debojyoti.chakraborty@igib.res.in; souvik@igib.res.in
Website link:
https://www.csir.res.in/slider/after-feluda-csir-develops-paper-test-%E2%80%98ray%E2%80%99-identify-covid- variants-within-hour
Studies on immunological, nutritional and comorbidity factors impacting response to infection and vaccination – an initiative funded by Office of the PSA
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pune has been one of the worst hit cities in the world. The total number of Coronavirus-positive patients to date (as on 9 May 2021) has reached 4,46,564 out of which 4,05,474 have been cured while 7358 have died. There are still 33,732 active patients undergoing treatment in various hospitals. Pune has, thus, been hit incredibly hard by the pandemic. During the beginning of the pandemic, Pune city, managed by Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), successfully initiated and maintained Government mandated data compilation from clinic and hospital-level data at the city level. The PMC and Pune Knowledge Cluster (PKC) entered into a collaborative agreement in April 2020 to develop and implement local policies based on the analysis of the COVID-19 patient-level data. The major activities of this collaboration included curation of the data, analysis of data at sub-region level called Prabhags, modelling of the data to project the pandemic curve, constitution of a project to assess the prevalence of positive serology among the population and coordination for resource procurements and allocation.
The PKC (www.pkc.org.in) is funded by the cluster initiative of the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India. The studies outlined here, however, can easily be scaled up across various regions of the country, which will generate public health data of enormous value for immediate policy decisions to address the current pandemic and also for the future.
Differences in the scale of the infection spread and severity of the clinical outcomes of infection highlight the importance of framing polices and strategies to fight the pandemic, both in the short-term and the long-term, based on ground level data and scientific investigations of the infectivity of the virus and immune response of infected people. Detailed studies on both the viral pathogen and host factors are key to understand and control the pandemic, prevent loss of lives, and reduce long-term health impact. Viral genome sequencing as the infection spreads across diverse human populations and as they are vaccinated and immunotyping of populations based on immune response to infection and vaccination need to be taken up immediately on war-footing. In addition, factors such as nutritional diversity among the populations and other comorbidities that impact the risks of severe disease need to be studied in more detail. Such studies have minimal epidemiological and public health value unless they are designed based on ground level granular data on the pandemic since its beginning.
Contact Info: ls.shashidhara@iiserpune.ac.in, secy@psa.gov.in, sapna.poti@gov.in
Website link:
www.pkc.org.in
VIGYAN PRASAR 60