ISLAMABAD: Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Thursday praised the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) for helping the government fight the coronavirus pandemic with indigenously developed technology and intellectual input.

During a visit to the university, Mr Hussain said the university has rapidly come up with innovative and effective products to rid the country of the pandemic, which has been wreaking havoc around the world.

He later said on Twitter that Covid-19 testing kids prepared by Nust would be used on a trial basis since the kits have been approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap). He said Nust has the capacity to provide the government with 150,000 kits.

Earlier, Nust Rector retired Lt Gen Naveed Zaman and principal investigators briefed the minister on specifications and applications of products related to the coronavirus.

This include a tele-operated decontamination robot, aerial spraying drone, robust and cost effective PCR-based testing kits for the detection of Covid-19; a bilingual (Urdu & English) Covid-19 self-screening application - the world’s first Urdu app for Android named COVID CHECK PAKISTAN, high quality sanitisers for microbial control produced as per revised guidelines from the World Health Organisation and United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and ventilator systems for the short-term stabilisation of Covid-19 patients, as per the design specifications issued for combatting Covid-19 by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulator Agency in the United Kingdom.

Mr Hussain was given a demonstration of the decontamination systems developed by scientists to disinfect open and closed spaces. These technologies will be used to disinfect high-risk and critically important locations such as hospitals, in and outdoor quarantine camps, airports, commercial spaces and so on to lower the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

Mr Hussain said Drap has constituted an expert committee for testing kits and ventilators which will meet soon. He added that time-to-market for medical devices, particularly ones that are invasive, is not a short process, and considering the inherently lengthy process, these particular kits are being fast-tracked so that the immediate requirement of the country can be met as early as possible, and dependence on imported kits can be reduced.

He also praised the scientists for having sequenced the complete genome of SARS-CoV-2, which would help develop more accurate diagnostics for this virus and will also impact vaccine development studies. Regarding fake and low quality hand sanitisers being sold in the market, he encouraged Nust to expedite work on the commercialisation of high quality sanitisers developed by the university.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2020