'India's research, manufacturing critical to fighting COVID-19'

Indias research and manufacturing will be critical to fighting COVID19 especially for making vaccines on a large scale billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said on MondayAddressing the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting 2020 Gates delved upon the difficulties in vaccine development and diagnostics of COVID19 The American business magnate said India is very inspiring as it has made huge strides in improving the health of its people in the last two decadesAnd now Indias research and manufacturing will be critical to fighting COVID19 especially when it comes to making vaccines at large scale he said Gates said scientists all over the world are involved in a particular grand challenge ending the current pandemicHe said researchers are breaking down silos and rather than waiting to go through the publication process they are sharing data on a daily basis Since the pandemic began scientists have shared 137000 viral COVID19 genomic sequences the Microsoft Corp cofounder said Even the pharmaceutical companies are cooperating on production ways that really have never been seen before he addedTalking about the challenges in vaccine development he said mRNA vaccine is an area where many have seen great promises Probably the first approved vaccine for COVID19 will be mRNA he said but added that the vaccine cannot be counted on alone because it is very hard to scale up and has a logistical problem because it requires a proper cold chainGates expressed hope that the mRNA platform matures in the years ahead so that its vaccines can be scaled up that can bring down the costs as well the cold chain requirement He also stressed on the need for innovation in diagnostics platformsEven when sometimes people are tested results come back negative because some of the tests are not sensitive to the small nano virus he said adding this also leads to infection So the diagnostics are letting us down Gates said stressing on the asymptomatic nature of the infection Right now the current business model is identifying people with symptoms and we need to change that We need sensitive and specific diagnostic tests which matter and we need to make it easy to access he saidHe also said although the RTPCR test has high specificity a lot of challenge is about the logistics Gates suggested that there should be test kits that can be spread out into the community and can be stocked in medicine cabinets community centres and pharmacies On cooperation by the scientific fraternity he noted that international teams of scientists are collaborating with full speed on the vaccine clinical trialsOne or more of these vaccines will be available by early next year and as there will be multiples vaccines it is necessary to make sure to understand how exactly and where to use each of them he said Gates said the pace of science in fighting the pandemic has been remarkable But despite all this work right now as fast as the science has movedthe pandemic is still ahead of us The first COVID19 vaccine will probably be the fastest that humans have ever gone from identifying the new disease to be able to immunise against it he said Still we all know this virus has managed to plunge the entire global economy into a deep recession he addedKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest newsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever