Dept of Atomic Energy aiding civil administration in Covid management

New Delhi, May 7 (FN Bureau) Union Minister of State for Atomic Energy and Space Dr Jitendra Singh on Friday said that Bhabha Atomic Centre and Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) have been supplementing country’s fight against the pandemic by providing COVID related equipment and technology. In an online review meeting with senior officials of the Department, Dr Singh said that development of protocol for sterilization of PPE kits using Cobalt source has the potential for re-use of PPE kits and development of N-99 masks using HEPA filter technology.

He also said that this mask is better than N-95 and N-99 masks have already been certified by three independent laboratories. He said, the technology has been transferred for mass scale production as it is both durable and cheaper than N-95 masks. Dr Jitendra Singh said that the Department of Atomic Energy also successfully developed reagents for RT-PCR testing, besides powered respirators, Reefer, Portable Plasma sterilization and plasma incineration technology for medical waste. During the review meeting, the Minister was informed by the senior officials that 25 percent of beds numbering about 600 have been reserved for cancer patients infected by COVID in all Tata Memorial Hospitals.

“Around 5,000 Oxygen Concentrators of six litre per minute are being received by Tata Memorial Centre, TMC as donation from abroad and most of it will be diverted to other Cancer Hospitals of the country”, the officers informed him. Dr Singh also said that a “Surveillance Study for Covid-19” is presently underway in Collaboration with Tata Memorial Hospital- to determine the genetic susceptibility for the severity of Covid-19. Describing as a unique and one of the rarest studies happening in the world, the Minister said that the results of which will be shared with the global scientific community very soon. Moreover, a Study is also underway to find out about the Oral signs which can predict the severity of Covid-19, he added.

Recalling the launch of COVID BEEP in June last year, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the system developed by DAE in collaboration with IIT Hyderabad and ESIC Medical College Hyderabad was India’s first indigenous, cost effective, wireless physiological parameters monitoring system for COVID-19 patients.