Top virologist in India, Dr Shahid Jameel has resigned as the head of the Indian SARS-COV-2 Genomics Consortia (INSACOG).
INSACOG the scientific advisory group coordinating the country’s genome sequencing work.
“It’s correct and I shall have nothing more to say,” Dr Jameel said.
INSACOG is a scientific body to promote and expedite genome sequencing of the SARS-CoV2 virus and its multiple variants.
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Jameel, a widely respected scientist, has been speaking and writing frequently on the pandemic.
Dr Jameel had recently written a piece in The New York Times in which he had said that scientists in India are facing a “stubborn response to evidence-based policy making.”
He had stressed on the need to increase testing and isolation, ramp up hospital beds by creating more temporary facilities, rope in retired doctors and nurses, and strengthen the supply chain for critical medicines and oxygen.
“Decision-making based on data is yet another casualty, as the pandemic in India has spun out of control. The human cost we are enduring will leave a permanent scar,” Dr Jameel wrote.
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Jameel had also criticised the Supreme Court’s recent decision to appoint a task force to manage oxygen supplies.
“This is really unfortunate. We are short on doctors and we have taken some of our best doctors and told them you play oxygen-oxygen. You decide who will get oxygen. It is really a sad day for us. These good doctors know about medicine, but what do they know about oxygen supply chain and logistics,” he had said.