GUWAHATI: Health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, in a press conference on 1st July, informed that the Regional Medical Research Centre for NE Region (ICMR-RMRC, Dibrugarh) situated at Lahowal has been successful in isolating the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus in their BSL-3 Lab.
In lay terms, the significance of the COVID-19 virus isolation by the team of scientists from RMRC, Dibrugarh is that live and viable SARS-CoV-2 (Novel Coronavirus) can now be produced in the laboratory in abundance and as and when required.
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This is important for development of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine where virus grown in laboratory are inactivated by heat or chemical and purified for use as vaccines after pre-clinical and clinical trials.
Notably, RMRC, Dibrugarh is only the 3rd government Lab in the country after NIV (ICMR Lab), Pune and CCMB (CSIR Lab), Hyderabad and 4th lab overall after Bharat Biotech (private biotechnology lab at Hyderabad), to isolate the virus in tissue culture.
