As part of its Rs. 1000-crore plan to establish a large network of virology laboratories in different parts of the country to cope with the increasing viral infections, the union health ministry will soon establish six more virology laboratories at Chandigarh, Ranchi, Patna, Vishakhapatnam, Chennai and Jabalpur.
By establishing such a network even rare viruses can be detected and it will also help in the early detection of viral diseases in the country. At present, there are two apex laboratories in the country. They are National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) at New Delhi and National Institute of Virology under Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) at Pune which are handling the outbreaks of epidemics.
In view of the growing incidence of viral diseases in the country, the Department of Health Research (DHR) had earlier prepared a programme for establishment of a virology network including a virology laboratory in each state. In view of the limited capacity for diagnosis of viral infections, ICMR had taken new initiatives to strengthen virology laboratories in various parts of the country in phased manner. Under this programme, virology laboratories have already been established at Port Blair, Bhubaneswar, Lucknow, Manipal, Thiruvananthapuram, Jaipur, Raipur and Allapuzha (in Kerala).
As per the DHR blueprint, there will be a three-tier system of virology labs in the country which will be established in a phased manner.
The Grade I laboratory (highest facility) will be equipped with facilities to carry out serology, tissue vulture, virus isolation, PCR/RT-PCR, fluorescence microscopy and sequencing of all major respiratory, enteric, blood borne, vector borne, zoonotic viruses and viruses which have the potential to cause outbreaks. The Grade 1 laboratories can be given up to Rs. 15 crore depending on the type of research the labs carry out.
The Grade II laboratories will be equipped to carry out serology, PCR, fluorescence microscopy for immuno-detection and the Grade III laboratories will carry out serology for viruses (ELISA based diagnosis) and PCR.
The Manipal Centre for Virus Research - ICMR network laboratory, which is headed by Dr G Arunkumar, was the first of the four sanctioned Grade I laboratories in the country. The others are in Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj Medical University, Lucknow (formerly KGMC), Regional Medical Research Centre, Bhuvaneshwar and Regional Medical Research Centre, Port Blair.