How IVRI Bareilly is testing animal samples for Covid-19

BAREILLY: With much still unknown about Covid-19 and its effects on animals, a handful of institutes in India are now testing both animals and human samples for the Sars-CoV-2 virus. At the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) in Bareilly, scientists have tested 22 animal samples last month, including those from tigers, leopards, monkeys, bats, an elephant and a wild boar. None of them tested positive.
So far, there is no evidence to suggest that an infected animal is capable of transmitting infection back to humans, but scientists insist that testing for animals is equally important because “no chances can be taken for a pandemic of this scale.”
V K Gupta, joint director and nodal officer of Covid-19 at IVRI, told TOI, “Testing of animals for Covid-19 is being done as a precautionary measure. If humans are accidentally transmitting the virus to wild animals, we will have to take control measures on war footing.”
After a tiger tested positive for the infection in New York’s Bronx Zoo in April, zoos in India were asked to remain on high alert and monitor animals for any abnormal behaviour. “We started testing after receiving directions from the Central Zoo Authority and ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to test wild animals for Covid-19.” Two other institutes also have permissions to test animals for Covid-19 — the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases, Bhopal, and the National Research Centre on Equines in Hisar, Haryana.
But resources, including manpower and even diagnostic kits, are limited, so the decision to identify which animals should undergo testing is a crucial one. And it’s the forest department that takes a call. So far, most test requests have come from Uttarakhand, UP and Delhi. Lalit Verma, chief conservator of forests (Rohilkhand zone) told TOI that generally when an animal is found dead in a forest or outside and there seems to be no obvious cause of death, throat, nose, rectal and blood samples are sent for Covid-19 testing. IVRI scientist Karikalan M added, “If the samples test negative for Covid-19, they are sent to other laboratories of the institute to check for other diseases to identify the cause of death.”
In some cases, carcasses are sent as well and testing them can take anywhere between two hours to three hours. When IVRI received a tiger carcass from Pilibhit Tiger Reserve for testing this week, it took three hours for a four-member team to conduct the autopsy and extract swabs. The room was thoroughly disinfected and team members sent to the institute’s guest house to take a shower. The entire process may be time consuming, but according to R K Singh, director of IVRI, testing is the most important criteria for containment that we have at present. “Our priority is to provide results early so that control measures can be taken up, if needed.”
One factor that enabled the institute to start testing animals quickly was that they didn’t have to tweak diagnostic kits — real time- polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing kits — for testing animal samples. Gupta said, “The only difference is that we conduct animal and human testing in separate shifts lasting up to four hours, otherwise the procedure and the diagnostics kits are the same,” said Gupta. The biosafety level-3 lab and the biosafety level-2 lab both hold two shifts to test samples in a day.
Each shift includes two scientists and a technical officer to process the samples. All of them have to take a shower once their shift is over and another one when they go to the guest house. A special designated vehicle takes the scientists to the guest house since most of them are now living there. Scientist K K Rajak has chosen to stay with family, but has to maintain distance at all times. “Sometimes, I want to hug my daughters at the end of a stressful day, but I can’t for their own safety.”