New virology labs in the offing

MUMBAI: Keeping in mind the acute shortage of laboratories for diagnosing viral infections, the Union Health Ministry will be spending Rs 1000 crore to establish new laboratories.

"It is proposed to establish a three-tier system of virology labs in a phased manner. The state governments have been told to identify centres where the labs can be set up," said, Dr. Vishwa Mohan Katoch, Secretary, Department of Health Research and Director General, ICMR.

By establishing state-of-the-art laboratories, the government hopes to detect rare viral diseases which earlier were unattended because of the failure in diagnosis.