The Government of India is working towards developing four virology regional biosafety labs BSL-3. The Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology Pune will be steering the project and research work.
These labs will work as regional labs and ICMRNIV Pune will look after their research work, according to official sources.
The centre lab will be at Jabalpur, the Northeast lab will be at Dibrugarh, the lab for the North will be at Mohali and the South will be in Bengaluru.
President Droupadi Murmu is likely to lay the foundation stone of one of the labs in Bangalore on September 27.
"These labs will be physical labs and will be useful for future preparedness if any disease outbreak or pandemic is reported in future as strengthening of lab infrastructure is crucial and will help spread and detection of virus faster. The project of these labs comes under the PM Ayushman Bharat Health infrastructure Mission (PM- ABHIM)," said an official source.