Lab warriors must stay in a state of high alert
PremiumIndia’s defence R&D labs have adapted pre-pandemic efforts to the war on covid and come up with innovations. They should also get set to shield us from a potentially worse third wave
India’s second wave of covid has thrown us into a full-blown war. In any such outbreak, research and development (R&D) always plays a vital role. It should not surprise us, therefore, that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), our premier developer of weaponry, has had its laboratories whirring away. It is the country’s most heavily funded R&D institution, after all, with a budget that is the envy of others. What has lifted spirits in a manner we did not exactly expect, however, is its quick adaptation of a few pre-pandemic initiatives to shield the country from the dreaded affliction. Since covid struck India last year, the DRDO has offered us innovations on the fronts of both therapy and life support. It has come up with a drug that may prove useful in covid treatment, for example, and an aircraft oxygen machine rejigged for hospital use. If it can also adapt its covid efforts to preparations for a potential third wave of infections, it would do the nation a service worthy of its stature.
The Drugs Controller General of India has accorded approval for emergency-use to a formulation called 2-Deoxy-D-Glucose, or 2-DG, which was developed by a DRDO lab called The Institute of Nuclear Medicine & Allied Sciences in association with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, a private pharma company. This drug sprang from anti-cancer work, reportedly, and is claimed to be effective against moderate to severe cases of covid. Its trials are said to have shown that it’s not just safe, but also able to speed up the recovery of hospitalized patients and reduce their dependence on supplemental oxygen. Also of significance is the DRDO’s quick-fire setting up of covid hospitals in cities as far apart as Patna and Ahmedabad, not to mention its Oxycare system, which, developed by a bio-engineering and electro-medical lab, regulates oxygen based on a patient’s level of haemoglobin saturation. The agency’s more interesting breakthrough, at least for its origin as a device meant for combat use, is an oxygen supplier hewed out of its Tejas fighter plane’s on-board O2 generator. This technology has been shared with Tata Advanced Systems Ltd and Trident Pneumatics, which are together expected to make 380 such plants for installation at various hospitals. Indeed, other state-run institutions have done their bit too. The Indian Space Research Organisation’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, for instance, has developed three mechanical ventilator models and a portable oxygen concentrator.
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None of these R&D labs can afford to rest; not so long as the pandemic has even a slim chance of worsening, which cannot be ruled out if the virus mutates further and sets off a third wave of attacks after the second one ebbs. Scenario planners at the DRDO must stay alert, study how it might differ in its impact, and devote pre-emptive resources to hedge the country against such an eventuality. As cardiac surgeon Devi Shetty has warned, children and even infants might turn more vulnerable to covid as the pathogen seeks out newer groups of hosts, and treating under-age patients would call for redesigned devices for drug delivery and life support. Most of what we have deployed so far was designed for adults. Adapting all this for kids is an exercise that must begin right now, regardless of whether it turns out to be a waste. Modern warfare, let’s not forget, is about what’s achieved away from the actual theatre of action as much as what happens in the thick of battle. R&D matters. So too in this case.
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