MOSCOW, March 26. /TASS/. Researchers working on means of COVID-19 coronavirus diagnostics and treatment have been granted priority access to the upgraded supercomputer of the Inter-Agency Supercomputer Center of Russian Academy of Science (RAS), RAS Krasnoyarsk Science Center said on its website.
"Science collectives and organization conducting research on COVID-19 coronavirus, which sparked the global epidemic, enjoy priority access to computing resources," the message says.
In particular, a collective of scientists from Moscow, Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk, in cooperation with researchers from Finland, China, Japan and Canada, is among those who use the supercomputer. The collective includes virologists, biologists, chemists, mathematicians and physicists.
According to the website, computer modeling methods allow scientists to predict effectiveness of drugs and speed up its development. In particular, the scientists need to acquire data on virus’s molecular structure and its interaction with human cells and potential drugs. Such calculations require a supercomputer.
On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about a previously unknown pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, an economic and industrial megalopolis with a population of 11 million.
In January, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, characterizing it as an epidemic with multiple locations.
As of today, 196 countries and territories reported confirmed coronavirus cases. According to the latest reports, over 457,000 cases of patients infected with the novel coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide, while more than 21,000 people died of the disease.
Russia has reported 840 coronavirus cases, with 38 people recovered from the disease. Two people have succumbed to the infection.