JOIN USStudy on to determine genetic susceptibility for severity of Covid-19: Union minister
A surveillance study is underway in collaboration with the Tata Memorial Hospital to determine the genetic susceptibility for severity of the Covid-19 infection, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Friday.
The Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office described it as a unique and one of the rarest studies happening in the world.
The results of the study will be shared with the global scientific community very soon, he said.
Moreover, a study is also underway to find out about the oral signs which can predict the severity of Covid-19.
"A surveillance study for Covid-19 is presently underway in collaboration with the Tata Memorial Hospital to determine the genetic susceptibility for the severity of Covid-19," Singh, who also looks after the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), said.
The Tata Memorial Hospital is a unit under the DAE.
Singh also conducted a review meeting of DAE which was attended by Secretary, DAE, K N Vyas; Chairman and Managing Director, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), S K Sharma; Director, BARC, Dr A K Mohanty; and senior officials of the department.
The minister was informed that 25 per cent of beds or about 600 have been reserved for cancer patients infected by Covid-19 in all Tata Memorial Hospitals.
Officials said that the Tata Memorial Centre is receiving around 5,000 oxygen concentrators as donation from abroad and most of it will be diverted to several cancer hospitals in the country.
Recalling the launch of Covid-BEEP in June last year, Singh said the system developed by the DAE in collaboration with IIT Hyderabad and ESIC Medical College Hyderabad was India's first indigenous, cost effective, wireless physiological parameters monitoring system for Covid-19 patients.
He said Covid-BEEP is a perfect example of how synergy among reputed institutes of India can offer solutions to most of the challenges faced by the country with minimum cost and thereby, make the country 'atmanirbhar' (self-reliant) in true sense.