Pune:The first images the coronavirus from India looks like are out, the images caught by team of ICMR-NIV scientists in Pune.
The images captured using the transmission electron microscope imaging, published in Indian Journal of Medical Research.
The images of Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, are collected from the throat swab of the first COVID19 case in India on January 30, who was a student from Wuhan.The gene samples from Kerala found that the virus was a 99.98 per cent match with the virus in Wuhan.
A total of seven negative-stained virus particles having morpho diagnostic features of a coronavirus-like particle could be imaged in the fields scanned. These included the round shape of the virus and a cobbled surface structure having envelope projections.
The image revealed the presence of stalk-like projections ending in round peplomeric structures typical of a coronavirus particle.
"In summary, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first report from India detecting the SARS-CoV-2 virus using TEM directly in a throat swab specimen confirmed by PCR. Although TEM imaging was limited by particle load in the specimen, we could still detect morphologically identifiable intact particles in stored clinical sample without initial fixation," the study said.
The article"Transmission electron microscopy imaging of SARS-CoV-2" has been authored by the ICMR-NIV National Influenza Center Team include Atanu Basu, deputy director and head of electron microscopy and pathology at NIV Pune.
According to the study, the description of a novel human coronavirus, initially referred to as the Wuhan coronavirus (CoV), is currently designated as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2 as per the latest International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) classification. It is probably the most recent human pneumonia virus with high outbreak potential.
