Focus: GS-III Environment and Ecology, Prelims
Why in news?
An Israeli team, led by a “high ranking” research and development (R&D) defence official, arrived in India with a multi-pronged mission, codenamed “Operation Breathing Space”.
Operation Breathing Space
- The team will be coordinated by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), and Indian Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the Ministry of Health.
- The plans include four different kinds of rapid tests, which will be jointly developed after trials on Indian COVID-19 patients, as well as high-tech equipment to minimise exposure of medical staff to the virus, advanced respirators and special sanitisers developed in Israel.
- If even one of the tests proves to be effective in testing for coronavirus in 30-40 seconds, this could be a game changer for the whole world and how we behave, at least until we have a vaccine.
- The tests that the Israeli teams will be conducting trials for include an audio test, a breath test, thermal testing, and a polyamino test which seeks to isolate proteins related to COVID-19.
- The simple tests have been tried on a small sample of Israeli patients, and now would be tried in the next stage on a larger sample of Indian patients.
- The cooperation between Indian and Israeli scientists will also include sharing the most effective treatment protocols for COVID-19 patients.
-Source: The Hindu
