Increasing thrust should be given to discovery and development of anti-viral drugs as the world is threatened with frequent outbreaks of viral diseases. New generation of anti-viral drug is the need of the hour. India is short of anti-viral drugs, said Professor Dr S Rajarajan, president of Indian Association of Medical & Pharmaceutical Virologists.

He is also the co-ordinator, National Bioinformatics Centre (NBC) of Department of Biotechnology, Chennai. The Centre is attached to the Presidency College, which is the only one government college in the state having the net work of NBC.

He said the main reason for the dearth of anti-viral drugs is the scarcity of well equipped laboratories in different parts of the country. The more laboratories come, the more will be the research on newer drugs. Working on anti-viral discovery and research has to be pushed up.

In the case of viral diseases like Chikungunya, Dengue and the latest H1N1 flu, anti-viral drugs are supposed to contain them. Doctors are prescribing some other medicines also for the viral diseases as exclusive drugs are not available.

While interacting with Pharmabiz, Dr Rajarajan said normally the pharmaceutical companies will not venture into the development of a new generation drug or anti-viral research as it entails huge investment. "Seventy to eighty percent of new drugs, in its final phase of trial, are withdrawn. So the pharmaceutical companies are not keen to take the risk of developing newer drugs. These companies are modifying the existing drugs. Therefore, in the public interest, the government should take the initiative for research into this critical area," he said.

Dr Rajarajan, previously served as the president of Indian Association of Bio-medical Scientists, said drug development should be based on the need. Research must always target in solving the problems. The ethics of scientists and the industry should be the same.

Dr Rajarajan, who had received many awards and titles from various universities and institutes in India and abroad, said, to deal with research on viruses requires development of human resources also. "Like laboratories, we need skilled personnel too. Now for each and every confirmation, we are sending the samples to the National Institute of Virology, Pune. If we could detect early, we would be able to prevent the disease also," he said.