IMoD Delegation Completes Its Mission in India, to Return to Israel with Covid-19 Samples Soon

The goal is to bring to the world the technological capability to perform rapid Corona tests within tens of seconds

By ARIE EGOZI

Editor Bilateral

Tel Aviv. The Israeli delegation led by the Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D) in the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMoD), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has completed its mission in India collecting sufficient samples to test and validate four Israeli diagnostic technologies.

 

The team will be returning to Israel in the upcoming days, with more than 20,000 samples collected from COVID-19 patients.

Israel’s Defense Attache to India Col. Asaf Maller said that the goal is to bring to the world the technological capability to perform rapid Corona tests within tens of seconds.

 

According to the Head of the delegation on behalf of the DDR&D, Lt. Col. Yaniv Meirman, “We are in the midst of processing and analysing the data that we have collected, and will continue this process upon our arrival to Israel. We are optimistic and hopeful that we will put in place a system for the rapid diagnosis of the Coronavirus.”

The joint team included representatives of the Ministries of Defense, Foreign Affairs, and Health, and is returning to Israel upon meeting its ambitious goal of collecting more than 20,000 samples from verified Corona patients within nine days.

 

They set up six drive-in sites in the city of Delhi for sampling purposes, and two labs for data processing using technology brought from Israel.

The Government of India assigned hundreds of local professionals to collect the samples (50-100 per site), from thousands of volunteers via non-invasive means. Four types of samples were collected from each patient: sound, saliva, breath and a swab test.

The activity was supervised by joint Israeli-Indian teams at all sites, ensuring that everyone complies with predetermined guidelines and regulation.

The samples that were collected were inserted to systems based on artificial intelligence, enabling the DDR&D personnel and representatives of Israeli industries to begin processing and analysing the data. This procedure will continue upon the return of the delegation to Israel.

-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist