Soumya Swaminathan – Artifex.News

Origins of COVID still unclear, but climate is driving new viral threats, says top scientist Soumya Swaminathan

admin — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 18:07:00 +0000

Soumya Swaminathan
| Photo Credit: File Photo

The jury is still out on the origin of the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus, although several hypotheses exist, including the possibility that the virus may have jumped from a secondary animal host, former World Health Organisation (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said here on Wednesday.

“We did not receive the data from the Wuhan lab needed to draw a definite conclusion. But the hypothesis that the virus was deliberately manufactured and released to infect people worldwide has very little scientific basis,” she said, responding to a question after delivering a lecture on ‘ClimateChange and Global Health’ organised by the Telangana Akademi of Sciences at CSIR-CCMB here.

Ms. Swaminathan, a former Director‑General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and now chairperson of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, was asked whether COVID‑19 could have resulted from an “accidental” laboratory leak or from mutations driven by climate change.

While the origins of SARS‑CoV‑2 remain unresolved, she noted that climate change is indeed influencing viral mutations, citing the H1N1 influenza virus, whose cases have increasingly jumped from birds to mammals, with occasional human infections. The number of such spillover events is rising in the United States, and as the virus continues to mutate, the likelihood of human infections — and potential pandemics — increases. “There is a lot of research going on in this area,” she said.

Earlier, delivering the 13th Dr. Manohar V. N. Shirodkar Memorial Lecture, she emphasised the need for coordinated public policy changes and strong implementation to address the threats of air pollution, extreme heat and climate change — challenges that disproportionately affect poor and middle‑income countries such as India.

“We are already experiencing the health impacts of heat and air pollution. Thankfully, there are solutions. China has done it and so has London, by transitioning to renewable energy, improving public transport, strengthening waste management through segregation, diversifying agriculture, and promoting energy‑efficient buildings. There is no doubt that human activities are the main drivers,” she said.

Ms. Swaminathan warned that biodiversity loss continues largely unrecognised, with “a million species at risk of extinction” and unpredictable consequences for ecosystems and human health. The 1.5°C temperature limit has already been breached, and the world may be heading toward 2.5-3°C above pre‑industrial levels by the end of the century, she observed.

Extreme climate events — heatwaves, landslides, droughts, floods, and cyclones — have increased in frequency and intensity, causing internal and cross‑border migration. Diseases, too, have shown a rise, affecting life expectancy. “Mitigation and adaptation are both critical,” she stressed.

Climate change and COVID‑19, she said, share one important similarity: they do not respect borders. That is why collaboration, solidarity and the sharing of scientific knowledge — even among groups that may disagree politically — are essential for addressing global challenges, she concluded.

Published – January 07, 2026 11:37 pm IST

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Key initiatives honoured with M.S. Swaminathan Award for Environmental Protection

admin — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:15:00 +0000

Satyakam Arya, (2nd left) Managing Director and CEO of Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) presenting 31st edition of Dr. M.S. Swaminathan Environmental Protection 2025 award to N. Devakumar Sahala Samrudha from Mysuru and Veerappan from Cuddalore along RTN Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chairperson, MSSRF, C.K. Ranganathan, Founder of CavinKare group and RTN Balaji Sreenivasan, President Rotary Club of Madras East during the M.S. Swaminathan 100th year celebration in Chennai on Sunday.
| Photo Credit: B. JOTHI RAMALINGAM

Two noteworthy initiatives were honoured at the 31st edition of the Dr. M.S. Swaminathan Award for Environmental Protection, an award instituted by the Rotary Club of Madras East (RCME) in the name of its honorary member and agricultural scientist, the late M.S. Swaminathan.

The first award was given to Sahaja Samrudha, from Mysuru, a people’s movement to preserve India’s traditional farming practices and conserve the rich biodiversity of indigenous crop varieties. In his acceptance speech, N. Devakumar from Sahaja Samrudha pointed out that how the organization has been instrumental in conserving traditional paddy varieties and millets.

The second recipient of the award was 60-year-old Veerappan, an Irular fisherman from Kalaignar Nagar village. He was honoured for his contributions in the field of environmental protection. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Veerappan explained how his team propagated mud crabs. “I now train college students in crab and fish propagation,” he added.

The Dr. M.S. Swaminathan Award is presented to either an individual, a company, or an NGO that has contributed, either directly or indirectly, to enhancing environmental protection and awareness. This initiative is being supported by CavinKare Pvt. Ltd.

The event was presided over by Balaji Sreenivasan, President, Rotary Club of Madras East (RCME), District Governor Vinod Saraogi, and C.K. Ranganathan, Chairman and Managing Director of CavinKare.

Soumya Swaminathan, chairperson of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, said that the mangrove protection work initiated in the early 1990s in villages like MGR Nagar and Kalaignar Nagar in Cuddalore district played a vital role in safeguarding the villagers during the tsunami. She also emphasized that coastal areas remain among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Ms. Swaminathan recalled a recent initiative by her team, carried out with the support of local volunteers, to address plastic pollution. “We cleaned 100 beaches with local volunteers. More than 30,000 kg of plastic waste was collected and out of that 10,000 kg was ghost gear (waste nets thrown away by fishermen) – they are dangerous because they trap turtles, dolphins and a lot of marine life,” she said.

Published – September 29, 2025 05:45 am IST

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Soumya Swaminathan on Trump’s Funding Remarks

admin — Sat, 25 Jan 2025 17:40:59 +0000

Hyderabad:

Former chief scientist of the World Health Organisation, Soumya Swaminathan on Saturday said the US opting out of WHO would not be good for anyone including that country and contributions to the global health watchdog depends on the GDPs of respective countries.

Hoping that the US, which has so much technical and scientific expertise, will reconsider its decision, she said if it opts out, the North American nation would also be unable to access data of WHO to be part of solutions.

“The richer the country, the more you pay because you have to pay as a percentage of your GDP. The current system is very fair. You cannot expect a small country in the middle of Africa like Congo to pay the same amount as the United States,” Swaminathan told PTI Videos, on the sidelines of the Hyderabad Literary Festival here.

She was responding to US President Donald Trump’s comments that his country with 325 million population paid USD 500 million to the WHO against China with 1.4 billion people paying USD 39 million.

Trump recently signed an executive order beginning the process of withdrawing America from the WHO, the second time in less than five years that the US has made a move to withdraw from the world body.

She opined that for health security in the future and to protect people from pandemics, all countries, including the US, need to work together.

“Even the United States will actually find it difficult to access data to be part of solutions to know what is going on in the other parts of the world if they are not part of WHO,” Swaminathan said.

“I think it is really not good for anyone that such an important, such a large country is withdrawing.” Asserting that health is interconnected and all the health risks are global, she said today viruses arising in one part of the world can spread around the world within 30 hours.

“So unless we have global collaboration and global policies and rules and regulations and understanding between countries, it is going to be impossible to address the threats to global health,” Swaminathan said.

She said the WHO is one place and platform where 193 countries come together and discuss issues, debate and arrive at a consensus before formulating rules like international health regulations and pandemic treaties.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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Can use genomic labs set up during pandemic to measure antimicrobial resistance: Soumya Swaminathan

admin — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 16:32:37 +0000

Soumya Swaminathan
| Photo Credit: B. VELANKANNI RAJ

Tamil Nadu could use the genomic testing laboratories set up during the COVID-19 pandemic to measure the level of antimicrobial resistance by analysing effluents from pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, said Soumya Swaminathan, chairperson of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation.

At the inauguration of the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Awareness Week celebrations here on Monday, organised by Alagappa College of Technology and the Tamil Nadu Council for Science and Technology (TNCST), Dr. Soumya, former Chief Scientist and Deputy Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), called for testing effluents from pharmaceutical companies, water let out by hospitals, and the soil to assess the levels of antibiotic use.

“During COVID-19, we did wastewater surveillance to check for coronavirus variants. We have the genomic capacity. By analysing water let out by pharmaceutical industries and hospitals, we can get an idea of the level of antimicrobial resistance,” she said. Only in India did COVID-19 patients contract ‘black fungus’, which she pointed out was the direct result of indiscriminate use of steroids.

Hospitals should conduct surveillance of infections on their premises, and the results should be made public, Dr. Soumya said, pointing out that 30,000 newborns in India die annually in intensive care units as they are resistant to drugs. She added: “The government should give grants to encourage the development of rapid diagnostic tests to check for antimicrobial resistance. Such tests will help advice the correct dose of antibiotics.”

Dr. Soumya said Indian generic pharmaceutical companies, with their experience in developing COVID-19 vaccines, could step in, and the government could support the development of new antibiotics. When Tamil Nadu’s One Health Committee meets on December 4, it must take up the issue of developing an AMR policy, she added.

S. Meenakshisundaram, dean of Alagappa College of Technology, said Anna University’s Department of Biotechnology had worked on a simple diagnostic method to detect a urinary tract infection in six hours. The device was currently in the validation stage, he added. S. Vincent, TNCST Member Secretary, also spoke.

Published – November 18, 2024 10:02 pm IST

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