Karnataka Govt Offers Land To Set Up National Institute Of Virology Lab In State

Karnataka has decided to allocate five acres in the Gandhi Krishi Vigyana Kendra campus of the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bengaluru for setting up a National Institute of Virology lab, state Health Minister K Sudhakar said on Wednesday (14 October).

He said that the Centre had decided to set up new NIV laboratories around the country, and Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa wrote a letter to the Union government to set it up in Bengaluru among southern states.

"..as a result of this, the Union government has given us the green signal to proceed ahead with the project," he said.

It should be noted that the Pune-based National Institute of Virology is one of the major Institutes of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). It was previously known as 'Virus Research Center' and has been designated as a WHO H5 reference laboratory for South East Asia region.

The field unit of NIV at Bengaluru is one of the centers under National Polio Surveillance Program conducting surveillance of acute flaccid paralysis cases from Kamataka as a part of Global Polio Eradication Prograrnme of the WHO South-East Asia region since 1997.

(With inputs from IANS)