May 11 is National Technology Day. As India, like the rest of the world, grapples with the Covid-19 pandemic, the significance of science and technology could not be underlined more.
And as scientists and researchers work round the clock to devise responses to the new sets of challenges this disease has thrown up, ingenuity and innovation have become the order of the day.
NewsMobile brings you some of the innovations India’s scientists have come up with to fight the battle against Covid-19:
1. India’s Indigenous Anti-body Testing Kit “ELISA”: The ELISA — enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay — antibody test is a kind of blood test. ELISA kits are similar to rapid antibody tests, which detect antibodies in the blood to find out if an individual was infected with COVID-19 infection or not.
Developed by National Institute of Virology, Pune, ELISA is expected to play a critical role in antibody detection. Also, it is expected to be more reliable and cheaper than the available rapid antibody testing kits.
2. Artificial manual breathing unit (AMBU): Sri Chitra Tirunal Institute of Medical Science and Technology (SCTIMST), Trivandrum, has developed a ventilator system based on an artificial manual breathing unit (AMBU). The institute’s automated AMBU ventilator with inputs from clinical faculty will assist in the breathing of the critical patients who have no access to ICU ventilators.
The technology has rapidly moved into clinical trials and manufacturing through Wipro3D, Bangalore. Apart from this emergency ventilator, the Institute is also making efforts in developing low-cost AI-enabled digital X-ray detectors for screening COVID-19 patients.
3. Anti-microbial coating: The Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), an autonomous institution under DST, has come up with a one-step curable anti-microbial coating. This coating is capable of completely killing the influenza virus and resistant pathogenic bacteria and fungi.
It is anticipated that the coating will not allow microorganisms to become active on coated surfaces. During the COVID-19 outbreak, the coating may be used to protect personal protective tools, clothes and equipment of health workers.
4. DRDO’s Ultra Violet (UV) Disinfection Tower for rapid and chemical-free disinfection of high infection-prone areas: The equipment named UV blaster is a UV based area sanitiser which is useful for high tech surfaces like electronic equipment, computers and other gadgets in laboratories and offices that are not suitable for disinfection with chemical methods.
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The product is also effective for areas with a large flow of people such as airports, shopping malls, metros, hotels, factories and offices. The UV based area sanitiser may be used by remote operation through laptop/mobile phone using wifi link.
5. DRDO’s Automatic Mist Based Sanitiser Dispensing Unit: The automatic mist based sanitiser dispensing unit is a contactless sanitiser dispenser which sprays alcohol-based hand rub sanitiser solution for sanitisation of hands while entering the buildings and office complexes. It is based on water mist aerator technology, which was developed for water conservation.
The unit operates without contact and is activated through an ultrasonic sensor. A single fluid nozzle with a low flow rate is used to generate aerated mist to dispense the hand rub sanitiser. This sanitises the hands with minimum wastage.
The unit can be used for sanitisation of hands at entry and exit to hospitals, malls, office buildings, residential buildings, airports, metro stations, railway stations, bus stations and critical installations. The product is also expected to be very useful for entry/ exit of isolation and quarantine centres.
6. DRDO’s UV Sanitisation Box and Hand-held UV device: The UV-C box is designed for disinfecting personal belongings like mobile phone, tablets, purse, currency, cover of office files, etc. COVID-19 virus will be deactivated by using UVC lamps in one minute placed equi-distantly in a box with ultraviolet rays.
The handheld device having eight watts UV-C lamp disinfects office and household objects like chairs, files, postal delivered items and food packets. The radiation warps the structure RNA which prevents the viral particles from making more copies of themselves. The UV-C kills microbes quickly.
Sanitisation of the items by employing UV-C light avoids the harmful effects of the chemicals used for the disinfection. This is environment friendly and is a contact-free effective sanitisation method.
