Dr Pragya Yadav A nationwide bat surveillance project to check for zoonotic diseases is underway in the country and scientists at Pune’s ICMR-NIV are involved in taking samples of bats and testing for the Nipah virus. “This will help us identify hotspots for the Nipah virus. Based on this, hospital surveillance will be taken up in future,” senior scientist at ICMR-NIV Dr Pragya Yadav told The Indian Express.
The senior scientist, who is also in charge of Biosafety Laboratory (BSL) IV at the National Institute of Virology (NIV), was instrumental in isolating the SARS-CoV-2 virus and leading the effort to carry out animal studies for the development of indigenous Covid-19 vaccines Covaxin and ZyCoV-D. She was awarded the Bharat Bhagya Vidhata Samman by the Union Ministry of Culture at a function held in Delhi on March 30. Former Union health minister and BJP national president J P Nadda gave away the award at the Red Fort.
Dr Yadav told The Indian Express that the last two years have been really challenging, especially for the NIV, as it was India’s most premier institute in the fight against Covid-19. “I was deeply involved and led the team which isolated the first virus in the country early on in the pandemic in February 2020. This was followed by development of the indigenous vaccine Covaxin in collaboration with BBIL (Bharat Biotech International Ltd),” she said.
The team at the NIV is working on multiple projects in the field of emerging and highly infectious diseases and also trying to finish work on Covid projects, including breakthrough, reinfection, mucormycosis and pathogenicity studies due to variants of concern, Dr Yadav said.
“I was further involved in isolation of all the subsequent emerging strains of the virus (Alpha, Beta, Delta, Eta and Omicron) and carrying out efficacy studies of the vaccines against these strains. I have carried out animal studies for the development of ZyCov-D and pathogenicity studies of emerging strains in animal models,” Dr Yadav said, adding that dedicated teamwork, timely reporting of data, rapid publication and vaccine development was possible due to hard work throughout the pandemic.
Recalling the challenges they faced at NIV, she said, “Right from the procurement of correct samples, transport across the length and breadth of the country to our lab in Pune, long working hours away from the family, leading a team which was full of talent but inexperienced in carrying out animal studies on the development of vaccines, procurement of equipment during the lockdown period, keeping the scarce and highly skilled manpower of our lab free from infection, non-availability of reagents for various experiments and so on, there were several challenges.”
To overcome these obstacles, the NIV team developed their own tests like Covid Kavach Elisa. The lab staff stayed within the campus during the crucial phase of the experiments, during the lockdown and were isolated from the general population and their family members. We had regular briefing and motivational talks with the team to maintain high morale, Dr Yadav said.
While the secretary of the department of health research under the central government, ICMR director general and NIV director provided crucial support in procuring vital equipment necessary for the smooth conduct of the experiments, external experts from the Armed Forces aided in some critical steps pertaining to animal experiments during vaccine development.
Lab diagnostics, biosafety and biocontainment procedures, and transport and handling of infectious materials are all part of the pandemic preparedness that the ICMR has already started and we are part of this preparedness, she added.
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