Fri 24 July 2020:
Israel decided to send India this week a team of scientists working to develop a rapid testing kit for coronavirus, the Israeli Embassy in India said on Friday.
The Israeli team will work in All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi. The testing of first phase was already done in Israel and the last stage will now be carried out in India for the testing kit which can give results within a minute, according to a statement by the embassy.
“India and Israel to conduct joint R&D for rapid testing to allow normalisation of life under COVID-19,” Avigail Spira, the spokesperson of the embassy, also tweeted.
“I’m proud to connect brilliant minds from India and Israel so they can jointly develop life changing solutions for the whole world, and especially in fighting the #COVID19 pandemic,” Israel’s envoy to India Ron Malka tweeted.
On the Indian side, PSA Prof. K Vijay Raghavan, officials from the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and Sanjeev Singla and the Indian Ambassador to Israel participated in the discussions with the head of the Directorate of R&D in Israel’s Ministry of Defence Daniel Gold and Malka.
It also said Israel’s ministries of foreign affairs, defense and health will lead an unprecedented anti-COVID-19 cooperation operation between India and Israel.
Earlier this month, Israeli Defence Minister Naftali Bennett said scientists at the country’s main biological research institute have made a significant breakthrough in developing an antibody to the novel coronavirus.
During Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to India in 2018, the two sides resolved to step up cooperation in the field of science and technology, including in the areas of big data analytics in health care and security in cyber space
The infection tally in India is around 1.28 million on Friday with 49,310 fresh cases reported within last 24 hours, according to government data. This is the highest single-day spike in cases in the country. Meanwhile, 740 more deaths reported during this time took the the tally to 30,601.
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