The State Health Department has written to Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan requesting her to issue necessary instructions to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to review the proposal of “Cytokine mediated anti-Covid therapy” developed by city-based immunologists U.S. Vishal Rao and Jyothsna Rao.
In a letter to Ms. Sudan, Jawaid Akhtar, Additional Chief Secretary (Health and Family Welfare and Medical Education), said Dr. Vishal Rao and his team have submitted a proposal to ICMR that holds the promise to mitigate the current crisis through the approach of the therapy.
Dr Vishal Rao is a member of the State government’s high-powered committee on tobacco control and member of consultative group to Principal Scientific Advisors for Government of India. He has nearly 18 patents to his credit including the one-dollar “artificial voice box” that he invented to help patients speak after throat cancer surgery..
Dr. Vishal Rao told The Hindu that the project work was started in the immunology lab at HCG hospital to create a treatment for COVID, assisted by Lancet Resource centre and scientists from the U.S.
“These cytokines are released by our immune system against the virus attack and have been known to be effective against COVID too. Unfortunately, patients infected with the virus are unable to produce them. We have used healthy donors to make this concoction. We will hopefully create the first set of injections soon for patient use,” he said.
