Pune: Scientists currently do not have tools to establish whether SARS-CoV-2 virus, which caused the Covid-19 pandemic, was artificially engineered or emerged naturally, said National Institute of Virology (NIV) director Naveen Kumar.India, however, needs to develop indigenous vaccine technologies to tackle future pandemics, he added.Speaking at an event at IISER Pune on Saturday, Kumar cautioned that Covid-19 was unlikely to be the last pandemic humanity would face.“Some theories suggest that the Covid-19 virus was artificially created and deliberately released in China. However, we currently have no scientific tools to establish this. While it is technically possible to create viruses using modern technology, we cannot conclusively determine their origin,” he said.The emergence of new viruses, he said, continues to pose a threat, with 300 to 400 new viruses being added to the list of known viruses every year. The list now comprises more than 17,000 viruses.While India meets nearly 70% of the WHO’s vaccine requirements and exports vaccines to more than 150 countries, Kumar stressed that developing indigenous vaccine technologies remained crucial to tackling future pandemics.The ‘Youth Development and Nation Building’ programme, jointly organised by Youth4Nation and IISER Pune on Saturday, saw a poor turnout of students, with the CV Raman Auditorium largely empty. Of the approximately 50 people in attendance, barely five were students, while the rest were predominantly speakers and organisers. A few panellists at the session on ‘National Development through Medico Research and Drug Discovery’ also expressed disappointment over the low student turnout.Kumar explained that the emergence of new viral infections could primarily be attributed to three factors: increased globalisation and cross-border mobility; climate change and rising temperatures, which are unlocking viruses that have remained frozen for years; and deforestation.“Encroachment into the habitats of wild animals has increased human-animal contact. While some viruses may be non-pathogenic in animals, they can cause diseases when they spill over to humans. More than 70% of infectious diseases are transmitted from animals to humans,” Kumar said.He said while no country in the world was fully equipped to prevent a pandemic, India was now better prepared to tackle one in the post-Covid era. This preparedness, he said, had been strengthened through the establishment of a joint task force and protocols. Two additional BSL-4 laboratories and four regional NIV centres are also under construction.“India supplies nearly 70% of the WHO’s vaccine requirements and exports vaccines and biological products to more than 150 countries. However, many of the technologies we use are still developed in the West, and we largely manufacture vaccines using those technologies. We have now begun developing our own indigenous technologies. Covaxin, developed in collaboration with Bharat Biotech, is a good example. While developing vaccines against different viruses remains challenging, I believe India will become self-sufficient in tackling future pandemics,” Kumar said.Gaurav Tripathi, co-founder and CTO of Partex.AI; Pratima Srivastava, a global pharma R&D executive; and A V Radhakrishnan, associate professor of physics at the Somaiya School of Basic and Applied Sciences, were the other panellists.
