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Business News/ News / India/  India to showcase its BSL-3 laboratory bus at World Health Assembly
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India to showcase its BSL-3 laboratory bus at World Health Assembly

The lab bus can be immediately deployed on the field whenever there’s a threat of an outbreak of zoonotic diseases

In 2018, when the Nipah virus outbreak occurred in Kerala, there was no BSL-3 facility there.Premium
In 2018, when the Nipah virus outbreak occurred in Kerala, there was no BSL-3 facility there.

 

Aiming to take pandemic preparedness to the next level, India plans to showcase a bus with a high-tech testing lab and state-of-the-art facilities for medial personnel at the World Health Assembly in Geneva later this month, before offering to South-east Asian countries for tackling health emergencies.

Asia’s first Biosafety Level-3 (BSL3) laboratory bus, developed by the Indian Council for Medical Research in collaboration with carmaker Mercedes Benz and laboratory manufacturer Klenzaids, will have its first outing at the 75th World Health Assembly on 22-28 May.

The biggest advantage of the bus is that it can be immediately deployed on the field whenever there’s a threat of an outbreak of zoonotic diseases.

Health minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya who is participating in the event will present the Indian innovation.

“Our health minister will be interacting with the health ministers of the other countries and WHO representatives at the World Health Assembly. Among top ten innovations from India, the health minister will showcase pandemic preparedness BSL-3 bus," said Dr Nivedita Gupta, Senior Scientist at ICMR.

“This is not only pandemic preparedness and innovation for India per se, but it is for the world, to gear up other countries to deal with pandemics in the future. We are ready to send this BSL-3 bus to other countries as well and provide them technical and maintenance support," Dr Gupta said.

“BSL–3 mobile labs have all the equipment installed to create negative air pressure (to prevent germs from escaping into the environment), handle infectious samples such as Nipah virus, temporarily store them and most importantly, sterilize the infectious waste before it is discharged into the environment," Gupta added.

“It has a facility for the lab technicians to take pressure showers before they come out of the bus. The biggest advantage of this BSL-3 bus is that it can be immediately rushed into the field within 24 hours having road connectivity where we see cases emerging out of zoonotic threats."

The bus has been fabricated on a Mercedes Benz chassis and costs less than $1 million.

In 2018, when the Nipah virus outbreak occurred in Kerala, there was no BSL-3 facility there. All the samples were sent to the highest facility, BSL-4 at National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune.

“We struggled hard because there was no BSL-3 facility in Kerala. We wasted more than four days obtaining results. And whenever there is one confirmed case, there is contact tracing of high-risk contacts which reaches upto 100 contacts. The delay in the report was creating panic and fear in people," Gupta said.

“Showcasing BSL-3 Laboratory bus at an international event is to loop in WHO and World Health Assembly because international community is yet not aware about this innovation. Once this is showcased in WHO, we are hoping that countries in the South-East Asia region will show their interest."

Klenzaids and ICMR will provide technical training and know-how for operat\ing and working in a BSL-3 environment.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Priyanka Sharma
Priyanka Shamra is a health and pharma journalist with nearly nine years of field reporting experience. She is a special correspondent with Mint. Her beat includes covering the Ministry of Health and Department of Pharmaceuticals. She also covers the Ministry of Women and Child Development and the Department of Biotechnology.
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Published: 24 May 2022, 01:58 AM IST
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