Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh informed that one lakh genome and DNA sequencing has been done for COVID-19 so far by the Department of Bio-Technology (DBT) and 5 COVID-19 Biorepositories with 57,000 samples were made available to academia and industry for R&D and Product development.

Dr Singh announced that a vaccine testing and research facility will come up at the second campus of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) in Kerala. The centre will have a BSL 3 facility that is capable of handling airborne viruses like COVID-19. The facility will be the first of its kind in South India.

The Minister was presiding over a high-level meeting to review the current status of COVID-19 research, development of vaccines and other protocols as well as the contribution made in this direction by each of the autonomous institutions of the Department of Biotechnology located in different parts of the country.