Ecosystem

A state-of-the art biosafety level 2 (BSL-2++) laboratory facility has been commissioned at NIVEDI campus at the cost of Rs. 22.01 crores (with the recurring cost of approximately 5-6 Lakhs per month). This bio-safety lab has all the components of bio-risk reduction plan to work with infectious and zoonotic microbes (bacteria, virus and parasites) of animal origin in the country. Scientific research in this BSL 2++ facility will contribute to the epidemiological investigations of the livestock diseases in the country and help in design development of animal/human diagnostics and other tests for their control and eradication. The ‘box-in-box’ BSL-2++ containment laboratory of NIVEDI is located separately from the administrative building and is having biometric facility for providing the restricted entry to only designated, well trained laboratory staff. The laboratory complex has two laboratories each for bacteriological work and virology. In addition, it has a central instrumentation facility room, decontamination (autoclave) room and appropriate pass boxes for solid biomedical waste. The laboratory bio-waste is autoclaved and is handed over to an appointed private agency for transport to the common treatment facility for proper disposal. The liquid outflow from the laboratory is channelized to a designated Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) for proper decontamination and disposal.

Monitoring and surveillance of livestock diseases are important mandates of National Institute of Veterinary Epidemiology and Disease Informatics (NIVEDI). To achieve this objective, the institute collects serum from randomly identified villages across India through its AICRP-ADMAS collaborating units. These samples, collected from apparently healthy animals, are screened for various livestock diseases including Brucellosis, Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis, Bluetongue, PPR and Classical Swine Fever. The left over serum, after the initial screening, is stored in livestock serum repository. Currently, serum repository has 35074 serum samples, which are catalogued. In order to have an easy retrieval of screening results, metadata relating to the serum and the stored serum, a MS Access based software has been developed. The said repository acts as a store house for retrospective screening of livestock diseases and also for diagnostic assay development and validation.

NIVEDI has several field isolate/strains of bacterial, viral and parasitic pathogens which are known to cause infectious diseases in animals. All these isolates were recovered during disease outbreak investigations by staff of NIVEDI. More than 1500 number of microbial pathogens in institute’s repository would aid in development and validation of various diagnostics for animal diseases.