News Analysis India

Tag: Council of Scientific and Industrial Research

  • CSIR study indicates coronavirus could be detected up to 10 ft in air around infected person: Government

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: A study conducted by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) indicates that coronavirus could be detected up to 10 feet or 3.048 metres in the air around an infected individual, the parliament was told Friday.

    In a written response to a question in Lok Sabha, Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said the results of the CSIR study have been posted on a pre-print server.

    “The study conducted by the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) indicates that the coronavirus could be detected up to 10 feet (3.048 meters) distance in the air around an infected individual. However, with directional air flow, the possibility of virus riding on aerosols to long distance cannot be denied,” Singh said.

    As a precautionary measure, wearing mask can help in significantly reducing the risk of catching the infection through air, he cautioned.

    Replying to another question on Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) — a consortium of 28 genome sequencing laboratories of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHF&W), CSIR, Ministry of Education, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and State Governments — he said the overall aim of the consortium is to monitor the genomic variations in coronavirus in India.

    He said according to the ICMR database, there are 1,88,26,913 individuals registered as COVID-19 positive between December 20 to July 19 2021.

    “Since the inception of INSACOG till now the INSACOG has sequenced 57,476 SARS-CoV-2 genomes. Out of these, 44,334 samples have been analysed and assigned Pangolin lineage classification and submitted to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for public health correlation,” he said.

  • CSIR suggests sewage, air surveillance systems in Parliament to detect COVID-19 prevalence

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: A presentation suggesting the setting up of sewage and air surveillance systems in Parliament to detect the prevalence of COVID-19 was made before Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday.

    Elaborating on the relevance of sewage surveillance in his presentation, Director General of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Shekhar C Mande said, “COVID-19 patients shed SAR-CoV-2 in stools. Apart from symptomatic individuals, asymptomatic people also shed the virus in their stools.”

    Sewage surveillance provides a qualitative as well as a quantitative estimate of the number of people infected in a population and could be used to understand the progression of COVID-19 even when mass scale tests for individuals are not possible, an official statement said quoting the CSIR chief.

    It is a measure to comprehensively monitor the prevalence of the disease in communities in real time, Mande said.

    Presenting data of sewage surveillance carried out to find the trend of infection in Hyderabad, Allahabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Nagpur, Puducherry and Chennai, he said it provides an unbiased estimate of numbers since the sampling is not done at the individual level.

    On the other hand, the numbers obtained by regular testing depend on the number of individuals tested.

    Mande said that sewage surveillance of COVID-19 would not only help understand the present epidemiology of the disease but would be an indispensable tool for early and easier detection of future coronavirus outbreaks.

    He also suggested setting up an air sampling system to monitor viral particles and potential infectivity threat.

    The vice president, who is also chairperson of Rajya Sabha, said he would discuss the issue with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and the government.

  • Seropositivity for COVID-19 found to be lesser in smokers, vegetarians: CSIR’s survey

    The survey also found that those with blood group #39;O #39; may be less susceptible to the infection, while people with #39;B #39; and #39;AB #39; blood groups were at a higher risk.