The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Virology lab proposal hangs fire Proposal to establish virology lab hangs fire

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 13, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Virology lab proposal hangs fire Proposal to establish virology lab hangs fire

Dennis Marcus Mathew

Lack of facility leaves authorities scurrying for other methods during jaundice outbreak Lack of facility has authorities scurrying for other methods during jaundice outbreak

HYDERABAD: The recent jaundice outbreak in several parts of the city is yet to shake the officialdom out of its slumber.

Or that is what a long-pending proposal for an advanced virology laboratory indicates.

The absence of such a facility had sent authorities scurrying for methods to confirm that the contaminated water indeed had caused the outbreak of jaundice. Both Hepatitis E and A being viral infections, it was necessary for an advanced virology lab to identify the source of contamination.

Facilities available in the city could only provide bacteriological analysis of samples and could not confirm presence of hepatitis virus.

The pending proposal is for a full-fledged laboratory offering a wide range of diagnostic services in various kinds of viral diseases along with a research centre and a micro-bacteriological lab at the Sir Ronald Ross Institute for Tropical and Communicable Diseases (Fever Hospital), Nallakunta. The proposal, expected to make the institute on a par with the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), New Delhi, is pending for two years, with no headway in the sanctioning of funds.

The institute Superintendent, K.N. Sudha Ramana, says the virology lab will be of immense significance since most new diseases reported in the State are viral in origin, be it severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Bird Flu or even jaundice.

Since there is no exclusive and full-fledged facility available in the city to test virus samples, the institute is forced to send samples to laboratories like NICD and Institute of Virology, Pune.

The plans for the laboratory included rapid diagnostics systems such as Serological and Polymerised Chain Reaction (PCR) method to provide reports within 48 hours.

The research centre and micro-bacteriological lab will aid studies on new diseases, apart from the lab being handy for introduction of a postgraduate course in tropical medicine, which at present is not offered anywhere in the country in spite of a rise in tropical diseases, Dr. Sudha Ramana explains.

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