PUNE: The Centre on Monday identified 10 advanced regional laboratories to serve as local hubs for genome sequencing.
Officials from National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said these centres will play a vital role in sample surveillance, which will trace new variants or mutations of SARS-CoV-2.
There are 17 labs in the country capable of genomic sequencing. The 10 newly identified units, spread across the country, will cater to the nearest states that have been directed to send 5% of all positive samples for genomic sequencing.
The Central Surveillance Unit, under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, at the NCDC, regularly collects data in a decentralised manner from various states and districts. Such data, collected for SARS-CoV-2, will be used to select representative positive samples from various regions for genome sequencing, an official from the NCDC said.
Officials from the ICMR said that while the country has enough labs, each of them will have to carry out quality analysis. Dr Samiran Panda, head of the ICMR’s epidemiology department, said these labs will play a key role in tracking and analysing strains, including the newfound UK variant.
Former ICMR head of epidemiology Dr Lalitkant said genomic surveillance in the country should have started from the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Currently we have the NIV, one CSIR lab and five under under the Department of Biotechnology,” he said.