ISMR to set up four high safety BSL lab

Chennai, Feb 26 (UNI) The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is going to set up high safety BSL laboratories in four regions of the country -- Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and Pune-- in addition to the existing one at Bhopal, to check the bird flu virus, ICMR Director General Prof N K Ganguly said today.

Addressing a press conference here, he said the proposed four BSL laboratory, a pre-fabricated one would be established here at Tuberculosis Research Centre (TRC), in addition to the existing three BSL conventional laboratory.

Since the poultry activities was the largest in South India, ICMR was very keen to establish the new laboratory in Chennai. The laboratory would be based on foreign know-how technology, he added.

He said the cost for setting up all the proposed high safety BSL laboratories would be around Rs 100 crore.

He said the Rs 50 crore ICMR school for public health was coming up at suburban Ambattur and it would start functioning from May this year.

The School with international hostel, guest house and training centre would be the first of its kind in the country, he said, adding the school would offer a two-year masters degree on Epidemiology.

The ICMR had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Boston University of Public Health and would ink MoU with another US-based reputed university on public health training, he added.

Mr Ganguly said the ICMR would also set up a Rural Health Research Centre-cum training centre at Tiruvallur near here with an initial investment of Rs 10 crore to impart adequate training to those involved in rural health activities.

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