The staff works under a heavy armoury of personal protective equipment such as coat, glove, goggles and mask, which makes it hard enough for them to drink water or even move freely. “It is a tiresome job, each person can maximum do only 3-4 hours. They then take rest and then return for another shift on the same day," said the epidemiologist who is in charge of the lab, AC Sugunan. At 60, this is Sugunan’s second innings at giving it back to the society, whose tax money heavily discounted his education in a state-run medical college in Kerala’s Kozhikode district. He ran the Andaman Regional Medical Research Center under the Indian Council of Medical Research, which also runs the Alappuzha facility, for the last 28 years, and then returned in June to man the lab in Kerala that was started in 2008.