Mumbai, May 20: Maharashtra government today announced that the metropolis would have two severe acute respiratory syndrome testing centres. Talking to media persons here, Director of the State Health Directorate Dr Subash Salunke said the Enterovirus Research Centre at Haffkine Institute and the Indian Medical Research Centre's Institute Of Immunohaematology (IIH) would carry out the required tests for suspected SARS cases in the city.
The National Institute of Virology, Pune had already provided training to a team of persons for both the institutes, Salunke said after a show on ‘The cold that kills-- Science of SARS’, screened by the Discovery Channel.
Replying to a query on dealing with deadly effects of human-animal contacts resulting in deaths as experienced in the leptospirosis cases in the state a couple of years back, he said the Health Directorate had already directed the municipal corporation to chalk out a programme to prevent the spread of the virus, especially during the coming monsoon.
The Discovery Channel's documentary, which will be telecast on May 27, attempts to dissect and explain the disease which has been spreading quickly across the globe.
Prof Malik Peiris, microbiologist and head of the team that discovered the SARS virus at Hong Kong University, and professor John Oxford, world renowned professor of virology at St Bart's School of Medicine, are among several experts interviewed in the programme. Bureau Report