The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has decided to subsidize 5,000 million yen for urgent research utilizing the Institute of Infectious Diseases in Asia for the new coronavirus infection, which is rapidly increasing in the number of infected people in Japan.Research groups such as Nagasaki University will proceed with sample collection and analysis, epidemiological surveys of host animals, isolation of the new coronavirus, and establishment of culture methods.
According to the Ministry of Education, a total of 10 researchers from the University of Tokyo, Osaka University, Kobe University, Tohoku University, and Niigata University will participate in the urgent research, with Koichi Morita, director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University as the representative.
Urgent research aims to collect knowledge on the new coronavirus that has not been sufficiently obtained, and collects information and samples of the new coronavirus using the Infectious Disease Research Institute in Vietnam, Thailand, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Myanmar. , Analyzing, etc., aiming to establish basic technology that leads to drug development.
At the same time, while grasping the actual situation of the new coronavirus epidemic in the Asian region, we will hurry to clarify the infection method of the virus and the factors that make it more serious.Furthermore, we aim to establish detection technology for antibodies, antigens, and genes that will lead to faster diagnosis.
The findings obtained from the urgent research will be shared with the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and utilized for domestic infectious disease control, and research for practical use will be promoted by the projects of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development.
