U.S. announces $ 122 m aid to India to address infectious disease threats
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U.S. announces $ 122 m aid to India to address infectious disease threats

The United States has announced a $122 million aid to three prominent Indian medical research institutions to prevent needless epidemics, early noticing of disease threats, and quick and effective response.

The three Indian health research institutions which will get the total funding of $122,475,000, over five years are the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the National Institute of Virology (NIV), and the National Institute of Epidemiology (NIE).

Announced by the CDC, the fund will speed up the development of an India that is protected from infectious disease threats through ICMR institutions’ main attention on emerging and re-emerging pathogens. It will include detecting and preventing the outbreak of zoonotic disease through a ‘one health’ approach, assessing the safety monitoring systems of vaccines, making the public health workforce capable of epidemiology and outbreak reaction, and fighting antimicrobial resistance, as reported by a media release.

ICMR is the top governing body for various national-level institutes, which are centers for distinction and reference in the particular scientific area for India, such as the National Institute of Virology, National Institute of Epidemiology, and several others. According to The CDC, ICMR is unique and has the potential to conduct this work and recently has worked on most of the lab-based surveillance of infectious diseases.