EX-HEAD OF PGI MICROBIOLOGY DEPT TN DHOLE DIES OF COVID

LUCKNOW: Former head of microbiology department at the SGPGI, Dr TN Dhole, 67, who played a major role in eradicating poliomyelitis from the country, succumbed to Covid-19 on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday.

He was admitted to the Rajdhani Covid hospital after testing positive for the virus around three weeks back.

“It’s a huge loss to medical science. He was a man who kept doing research on new things. He took pains to establish an independent department of microbiology at Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS). At that time, the microbiology department used to be a part of pathology department. His forte was virology and his contribution in eradicating poliomyelitis from India was recognized by national and international forums,” said Dr Rakesh Kapoor, former director of PGI (now director of Medanta Lucknow), under whom Dr Dhole worked as HoD microbiology department.

Monalisa Chaudhary, former chief PRO of the PGI, said: “I always found Dr Dhole working like a young resident. He was deeply passionate about his work and was amongst the first lot of SGPGI faculty. I have seen him working till late in his lab and trying to implement novel methods in hospital waste management. He was retired and could have stayed at home. But, he chose to work towards collecting samples of coronavirus and working on them.”

HE WAS ADMITTED TO THE RAJDHANI COVID HOSPITAL