The World Health Organization (WHO) has selected the National Institute for Environmental Engineering Research (NEERI) in laboratories around the world to track new variants of Sars Covid-2 and other viruses. 11 districts of Vidarbha will be treated on city sewage and hospital waste through the laboratory ‘Co-V-Net’ established by NEERI
NEERI Department of Environmental Epidemiology and Epidemic Management (EEPM) has been invited by WHO to share expertise in identifying SARS-Covid-2 hotspots and conducting environmental and wastewater surveys. Dr. Krishna Khairnar is the head and chief scientist of this department. In 11 districts of Vidarbha in EEPM department laboratory ‘Insakag’ genome is working as surveillance and covid protector. The laboratory of the department is aligned with many government hospitals and laboratories in Vidarbha and is equipped with necessary infrastructure for monitoring effluents and diagnostic samples. The laboratory has been monitoring the genome of Covid-positive samples for the past two years and has submitted genome sequencing reports of over 5,000 samples to the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID).
NERRI ‘Co-V-NET’ laboratory was established during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. The structure of this laboratory is being developed by WHO and will work from global, regional and national laboratories.
It is said by NERRI that the aim is to facilitate the genotypic and phenotypic evaluation of the novel coronavirus as it is important for public health, as well as to accurately detect and monitor the capabilities of Sars-Covid-2, MERS-Covid. WHO aims to track all future variants with accurate diagnosis and timely risk assessment through ‘CO-V-NET As the epidemic subsides, testing is not widespread. Therefore, when we do not have many clinical samples to study, wastewater monitoring becomes important. This will help in early detection of community spread of pathogens, said Dr. Khairnar said. It is said that sewage monitoring is important for the development of new coronavirus variants and it is said that WHO will be ready for monitoring as well as training, capacity building and setting up more centers across India.