Sun Pharma and NIV join forces to fight zika, chikungunya & dengue

Sun Pharma and NIV aim to promote discovery sciences, translational health research and development of medical products, which is in sync with the direction provided by Government of India’s Make In India initiative. Sun Pharma’s agreement with NIV follows its MoU with ICMR for conducting joint scientific research and innovation for testing of drugs, biosimilars and vaccines and disease control and elimination programs.

Sun Pharma and NIV will work together to respond to significant and emerging public health threats in India and rest of the world due to zika, chikungunya and dengue viruses. These are arboviral diseases that have rapidly spread across globally in the last decade, and have often led to large-scale endemic outbreaks in tropical and sub-tropical countries.

While these viral diseases are transmitted to humans by infected aedes mosquitoes, zika and chickungunya viruses are genetically related. These three diseases pose major public health concern due to lack of any vaccine or any specific therapeutic drugs to treat or cure. The patients are given symptomatic treatment. 

Dr Devendra Mourya, director, NIV, said, “Dengue and chikungunya are major public health problem in India like most of the tropical and subtropical countries. Recently, rapid spread of zika virus across the world has added threat to the list of aedes borne infections. Unfortunately, yet no effective antivirals and vaccines are available for these infections. Our agreement with Sun Pharma aims to find a solution to these unmet needs.”

National Institute of Virology is an apex institute in the country for carrying out research on viral infections under the Indian Council of Medical Research. NIV has developed comprehensive infrastructure facilities like tissue culture, epidemiology, biochemistry, immunology, and medical zoology for research in arbovirology. It is recognised as the World Health Organization (WHO) regional collaborating centre for reference and research on arboviruses, influenza and measles as well as national reference centre for hepatitis, avian influenza and emerging infectious diseases.