Medical experts at the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) have harvested live coronavirus as an additional control for validating tests, according to a statement issued by the council on Wednesday.

Professor Bavesh Kana and Dr Bhavna Gordhan, who both received the SAMRC Career Development Award, along with their team, were able to make the remarkable achievement in the face of the global pandemic, the SAMRC said.

"The remaining hurdle was the production of the live virus as an additional control for validating tests," the SAMRC said in a statement on Wednesday.

Kana, who heads up the Wits University node of the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research, is no stranger to handling infectious viruses.

"We were able to quickly respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and adapt a BSL3 laboratory geared for dealing with infectious bacteria to carry out work with a highly infectious virus," Gordhan, a senior medical scientists at the Biomedical TB research centre, said.