Dr. Rajiv Bahl, Director-General, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Friday said that the apex research body will be collaborating on large multistakeholder studies with national and state-level Departments of Health and Family Welfare.
The ICMR Chief said that in the last few years, the government has undertaken various interventions to strengthen and advance public health research in India.
As part of these ongoing interventions, ICMR has worked to streamline its Intramural Research Program funding, to strengthen research on various priority health issues. ICMR has also worked to expand funding under its Extramural Research Program (ERP), to enhance funding for research on vaccines, drugs, disease diagnostics and treatments for stronger public health systems.
During a press conference, Dr. Bahl said that under the government’s PM-ABHIM program, ICMR is collaborating with eight premier scientific organisations in India to establish a National Institute of One Health, to roll out the National One Health Mission across the country and strengthen multidisciplinary approaches in health research.
When asked about plans for dealing with emerging zoonotic diseases, Dr. Bahl told Financial Express.com: “The whole purpose of a National One Health Mission is to have the preparedness to identify and manage and work towards not letting a Disease X become a pandemic. It starts with surveillance…so creating surveillance methods not only for zoonotic diseases. Now One Health doesn’t mean that it is only a zoonotic disease…it means animal, plant, human health as well as the environment are interlinked. So, what we have done so far…as I said first is surveillance and we are working very closely with partners in human health like NCDC… Animal Health, wildlife, and others…to learn models for surveillance.”
Additionally, ICMR is working to expand its network of BSL-3 and BSL-4 laboratories, to strengthen diagnostic infrastructure and enhance access to laboratory services across India, he informed.
He also informed that the apex body will soon start surveillance projects in bird sanctuaries, zoos, and other places where there is a kind of increased human-animal contact and they will also focus on environmental surveillance.
While talking about takeaways from the COVID-19 pandemic, the ICMR chief informed Financial Express.com: “…WE are trying to do in collaboration with other departments like DBT to convert the COVID environmental surveillance methods into generic surveillance methods. We have a network of VRDLs across the country. What we have done is…instead of only COVID surveillance…we are doing pan-respiratory virus surveillance. So, we have added influenza…subtypes of influenza, RSV etc. We will expand that further and we want to measure all these pathogens all the time rather than focusing on one pathogen.”
He also said that they are working towards effective output from joint teams and want to make sure that these labs remain functional all the time to respond better during a new outbreak or pandemic.
ICMR is also working towards understanding the status of many disease-causing pathogens that currently don’t have any vaccine or treatment.
“….Second part of the One Health Mission is the ability to develop diagnostics, vaccine and therapy within a short period of time. It took us 10 months to develop a covid vaccine…the global as well as India’s aim is to do this in less than 100 days. That is the goal…We don’t know what will be the Pathogen X…but we know certain pathogens for which we do not have vaccines or therapeutics today,” he told Financial Express.com.
He also informed that recently ICMR has come with an Expression of Interest to work with domestic companies in order to develop vaccine against Kyasanur forest disease (KFD).
“…many companies have been very interested in helping ICMR. So, we are trying to work with them to find ways for how can we work hand in hand with them just like we worked on Covaxin…Without this partnership, it will never be possible. So, we are trying to do this in an open way,” he added.
KFD is a tick-borne viral haemorrhagic fever endemic to the Southwestern part of India.
The ICMR chief also told Financial Express.com that funding the industry to develop these vaccines and therapeutics continues to pose a challenge.
“One of the problems we have is to fund the industry…we don’t have any mechanism in ICMR. So we are asking them for their help as CSR but we are very hopeful that many of them will come forward and will work with us. If we can develop these counter-measures for the pathogens that we know today…that’s the only preparedness we have can have for being able to do the same for an unknown pathogen…we developed a vaccine because we had invested in our industry and R&D and manufacturing capacity for covishield…we are very strongly going in that direction…to be able to develop those vaccines, monoclonal antibodies as well as diagnostics for current diseases and small outbreak which will help us in our preparedness,” Dr. Bahl said.
During the press conference, the ICMR chief also said that with the launch of the National Health Research Program, ICMR will be collaborating on large multistakeholder studies with national and state-level Departments of Health and Family Welfare, on 12 key health areas, including infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, child health, and nutrition, generating critical evidence for strengthening health interventions on these issues.
‘Nipah Virus has a high mortality as compared to COVID-19’
During the press briefing, Dr. Bahl also shared insights on the Nipah Virus outbreak reported in Kerala. According to Dr. Bahl, there have been six confirmed cases of Nipah and two confirmed deaths as of now.
“Current evidence indicates that the outbreak is limited to the Kozhikode district of Kerala. Though Nipah virus has high mortality of 40-70%, it is important to note that in the earlier outbreaks the scale remains small and for a short time period. In 2018, a total 18 lab confirmed cases were reported and the outbreak was contained within a month. Therefore, it is important to place measures for containment at the earliest. The state health authorities have implemented necessary protocols and are continuing efforts to contain the virus and prevent further spread, with support from NCDC, ICMR and others,” he told reporters.
He also informed that ICMR has deployed its mobile BSL-3 laboratory on-ground to test samples.
“This is in addition to testing at ICMR-NIV’s BSL-4 laboratory. Furthermore, the network of Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratories (VRDLs) in Kozikhode has been activated. Teams from ICMR’s National Institute of Virology (ICMR-NIV) and National Institute of Epidemiology (ICMR-NIE) have been deployed on-ground and are working with state authorities to strengthen containment efforts,” he added.
It is also advised that people take certain precautionary measures against Nipah, including handwashing, avoiding contact with body fluids of infected or suspected cases, avoiding areas where bats are known to roost and contact with bats as well as avoid consumption of raw foods that may be contaminated by bats, such as raw date palm sap or raw fruits, he added.