BRICS to study overlap of SARS-CoV-2 with tuberculosis

Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India in collaboration with BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) is implementing SARS-CoV-2 NGS-BRICS consortium and multi-centric programme to study the impact of severe COVID-19 conditions on tuberculosis (TB) patients. The SARSCoV-2 NGS-BRICS consortium is an interdisciplinary collaboration to advance COVID-19 health-relevant knowledge and to contribute to improvements in health outcomes. The consortium will accelerate the translation of genomic data leading to clinical and public health research and interventions from clinical and surveillance samples by utilising the high-end genomic technologies, and epidemiologic and bioinformatics tools for future use in diagnostic assays and tracking transmission dynamics of COVID-19 and other viruses. The collaborative study is expected to provide valuable co-morbidity data about pulmonary TB patients with or without COVID-19 co-infection that is expected to be generated for better disease management.