Al-Shifa Trust establishes research laboratory to fight Covid-19

Rawalpindi: Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital has transformed its research center into a state-of-the-art research laboratory to gear up the fight against COVID-19 while the final trials of a vaccine developed by a Chinese multinational, Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd are in progress at Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital after which it will be made available throughout Pakistan.

Chief of Medical Services at Al-Shifa Trust Dr. Wajid Ali Khan claimed this while saying that the whole process will take a month. He said the laboratory will enable us to respond to the current outbreak in a better way through treatments and countermeasures that can save millions of lives.

He added that his team would also be figuring out how the new infection spreads and how it infects as this information will be vital in order to accurately test new vaccines and drugs against the virus.

He said this is the first time humans have encountered this particular virus which first emerged in December 2019 and rapidly evolved into a pandemic that is endangering humanity. With the overwhelming numbers of patients, the clinical laboratories are encountering enormous pressure therefore a better system is needed to rapidly and accurately diagnose the infected persons for quick response by the health workers, he added.

He said that strategies are urgently needed to educate masses and effectively detect the disease. He noted that re-infection has also become an issue and we will take this issue as a challenge to overcome this problem through finding ways for long-term immunity in people.

We don't have the luxury of time, speeding up research has become a necessity to fight this disease which has transformed into a global crisis, he said. We should be working overtime to combat the disease resulting in lockdown disruption hitting millions, he said.

He noted that many people are not taking the problem seriously that is resulting in a steady increase in the number of COVID-19 cases which can result in a huge catastrophe.