Health ministry’s Rs 531 crore tech push: AI in healthcare, cancer research on cards

Some other key areas where the money will go are: tackling persistent health problems such as anaemia and cancers, research implementation, pandemic preparedness and ensuring that Indian institutes rank high in medical research.

When it comes to digital health and AI, Dr Bahl said the department will support the development of new tools and databases on which these tools would be developed and trained.

Dr Bahl said ICMR will support the development of newer therapies such as gene therapy and help take them to the market.

The ICMR, along with NITI Aayog and the apex drug regulator CDSCO, also plans to help startups making medical devices during multiple phases of development: pre-clinical and clinical trials, regulatory approvals, prototype development and scaling up

In the case of pandemic preparedness, the government will work towards setting up the National Institute of One Health, improve facilities for surveillance such as setting up of biosafety level 3 and 4 laboratories, and creating a network between already existing laboratories under various government institutions. The department of health research will also work towards developing medical countermeasures against pathogens that may lead to outbreaks and pandemics. The department plans to create libraries of these countermeasures.

“We are working on developing a vaccine against Kyasanur Forest Disease and a monoclonal antibody for Nipah. We have already developed and made available in the market diagnostic tests for Mpox,” said Dr Bahl.

Kyasanur Forest Disease is a tick-borne infection that causes fever, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and in some cases neurological and bleeding symptoms. It kills 3% to 5% people it infects. And, Nipah is a viral infection usually transmitted by infected bats. It may lead to fatal brain swelling, with the disease killing 40% to 75% of those who test positive.