The National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad has contacted public and private research institutions all over the country, seeking their input regarding data sharing of COVID-19 research under a national-level consortium.
According to details, the NIH has sought input from a number of institutions having the capacity to perform complete or partial genome sequencing of Coronavirus to become part of a national COVID-19 research consortium.
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The goal of setting up a national COVID-19 consortium is to enhance the research capacities of the institutions, enabling them to conduct more focused research and avoid repetition. This way, these institutions would help each other in monitoring the spread of Coronavirus and its evolution.
Currently, only the NIH Islamabad and Aga Khan University (AKU) are sharing data of their COVID-19 genomic sequencing and research with each other.
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On the other hand, National Institute of Blood Diseases (NIBD), National Institute of Virology (NIV), Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), Ziauddin University, Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU), Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBJE) have the capacity to perform complete or partial genome sequencing but they are not sharing data regarding COVID-19 research with each other.
