PANAJI: Even as Goa grapples with a fast-spiking second wave of Covid-19 cases, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Goa’s newly-instituted school of interdisciplinary life sciences has proposed the establishment of a common entity involving government bodies, academic institutes of importance and reputed private NGOs located in Goa.
The school has already begun talks with Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC), with an aim of establishing a Goa infectious diseases surveillance hub.
The initiative is being headed by Sudhir Krishna, whose laboratory is based at the national centre for biological sciences at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
Now also affiliated to IIT Goa, Krishna said that IIT is working to bring GMC, National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa University, BITS Pilani-Goa and reputed NGOs like Sangath on a common platform.
The common entity will then strive to work on gaps in infrastructure and training in treatment of infectious diseases in Goa. It also plans to work in the areas of local variants of Covid-19 and even vaccine research in collaboration with Indian companies.
“We have all the capacity, but Goa has underutilised its academic capabilities. By working together, by taking an interdisciplinary approach by getting GMC, GU, IIT, etc, on board, we can be at the cutting edge. We need to have both competition and collaboration,” said Krishna.
With the presence of production units for all major pharmaceutical companies in Goa, the state also has potential to become a global vaccine producing hub, said Krishna.
He said that the data on Covid-19 variants is crucial during the second wave of infections, and carrying out genome sequencing can help identify variants and update vaccines (to make them) effective on local variants.
“We are already in talks with GMC and we look forward to working with them. We must break the public-private entity divide. At present, we are in the midst of a crisis and crisis drives change,” said Krishna.
He said that the infectious diseases surveillance hub, once established, will expect GMC to identify a problem of importance in public health for the state and then identify the gaps in infrastructure and training, which the new entity can help address.
“We first have to admit that we cannot work alone, and that research requires an interdisciplinary approach. Goa has done well so far, but we are being complacent. This to the time to raise the bar,” he said.