‘We want Nagaland to grow’

Union Minister inaugurates Paragonimiasis Research Laboratory at Naga Hospital Authority Kohima  

Our Correspondent
Kohima | April 19  

Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Science, Dr Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday visited the DBT Healthcare Laboratory & Research Centre at Naga Hospital Authority, Kohima (NHAK) and inaugurated the Paragonimiasis Research Laboratory there.  

The Department of Science & Technology, Government of India, has funded the Paragonimiasis Research Laboratory.  

Paragonimiasis is a disease caused by species of lung flukes of the genus Paragonimus. Eight species have been identified which use man as a host, and the disease has a range of Asia, Africa, and the United States.  

Addressing media person at the event, Dr Vardhan assured that he would do his best to implement the proposals put forward by Nagaland Government. “We are with you. We want Nagaland to grow in terms of everything, facilities and other various things,” he said.  

Nagaland’s Minister for Health & Family Welfare, P Longon expressed gratitude to Dr Vardhan for extending help to the state; while adding that under his leadership the medical and research field in the state have progressed immensely.  

Longon also expressed gratitude to the Union Minister for creating the infrastructure and providing the latest diagnostic facility and world-class equipments and machinery etc at the DBT Healthcare Laboratory & Research Centre.  

He said since the setting up of the centre at NHAK, a total of 1, 43, 237 number of various laboratory test have been done till date.  

Longon also stated that with the provision of this facility, doctors and researchers of the state could take up researches related activities and assist in diagnosis of local specific diseases and health care problems.  

He informed that Nagaland state have started research activities concentrating mainly on the local diseases, one of which is Paragonimiasis.  

Highlighting the achievements of DBT Healthcare Laboratory & Research Centre, Principal Investigator, Dr V Khamo stated that the centre with world-class equipments, has become a referral diagnostic centre of the state with patients now able to avail diagnostic facilities without being referred outside.  

According to Dr Khamo, research work completed at the centre include survey of Scrub typhus in Nagaland using IgM ELISA assay; survey of Paragonimiasis in Nagaland, study of blood group Antigens in Naga population, screening for Cervical cancer, preliminary work on Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma and molecular diagnosis of Epstein-barr virus and genotoxicity genes (GSTTI and GSTM1) of Nasopharyngeal cancer in different ethnic groups of Nagaland.  

Further, there are two ongoing research work -DBT Twinning project on “Identification of sputum and urine exosomes based protein signature to diagnose and prognoses pulmonary tuberculosis” in collaboration with ICGEB, New Delhi and research project on “Development of a rapid serological test kit for Paragonimiasis and its morphological identification. Both the researches are funded by DST, Ministry of Science & Technology.  

Earlier, the Union Minister inaugurated Twinning Network Project on Chemical Ecology of NER at Nagaland Science & Technology Council, Kohima.