Current Affairs Questions

Explanation :

• Recently, NITI Aayog released a report on the performance of States in the implementation of Poshan Abhiyan.
• Andhra Pradesh ranked 1st in country for the overall implementation of Poshan Abhiyan.
• As part of the programme the State has trained all Angan Wadi Workers on modules created based on lifecycle approach, i.e. first 1000 days of life, with the support of incremental learning Approach (ILA).
• On the other hand,Tamil Nadutops the list of the states in terms of the number of participants in the programme.

Explanation :

• The avian botulism is a neuro-muscular illness caused by Botulinum (natural toxin) that is produced by bacteria - Clostridium botulinum.
• Clostridium botulinum is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped, anaerobic, spore-forming, motile bacterium with the ability to produce the neurotoxin botulinum.
• The bacteria cause 4 types of botulism namely infant botulism, wound botulism, foodborne botulism and inhalation botulism.
• Homemade, fermented and preserved foods are common sources of foodborne botulism.

Explanation :

• On 16^th November, 2019, Ministry for Health and Family Welfare launched Social Awareness and Action to Neutralise Pneumonia Successfully (SAANS), a campaign aimed at reducing child mortality due to pneumonia, which contributes to around 15% deaths annually of children under the age of five.
• The government aims to achieve a target of reducing pneumonia deaths among children to less than three per 1,000 live births by 2025.

Objective

• To mobilise people to protect children from pneumonia, and train health personnel and other stakeholders to provide prioritised treatment to control the disease.

About SAANS

• Under the campaign, a child suffering from pneumonia can be treated with pre-referral dose of anti-biotic amoxicillin by ASHA workers, and health and wellness centres can use pulse oximeter (device to monitor oxygen saturation) to identify low oxygen levels in the blood of a child, and if required, treat him by use of oxygen cylinders.
• A mass awareness campaign will also be launched about the effective solutions for pneumonia prevention like breast feeding, and age appropriate complementary feeding.

Explanation :

• Nipah virus is a member of the family Paramyxoviridae, genus Henipavirus. It is a type of RNA virus.
• Nipah virus is zoonotic virus can be transmitted to humans from animals (such as bats or pigs), or contaminated foods and can also be transmitted directly from human-to-human.
• Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are the natural host of Nipah virus.
• The disease was first identified in 1998 during an outbreak in Malaysia while the virus was isolated in 1999. It is named after a village in Malaysia, Sungai Nipah.
• There is no treatment or vaccine available for either people or animals. The primary treatment for humans is supportive care.

Explanation :

• On 25^th September, 2019, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister launched the new TB Harega Desh Jeetega campaign, along with the National TB Prevalence Survey.
• Under this, new pivotal initiatives to diagnose, treat and prevent TB will be introduced, which will help in achieving the target of a TB-free India by 2025, much ahead of the global target of 2030.
• The campaign is built on three strong pillars -clinical approach, public health component and active community participation.
• Other supporting elements of the campaign comprise private sector engagement, patient support, and political and administrative commitment at all levels.
• In April 2018, the government launched the Nikshay Poshan Yojana, a direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme to provide nutritional support to TB

Tuberculosis (TB)

• It is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs.
• It is spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air.

Explanation :

• Taking into account that congenital and hereditary genetic diseases are becoming a significant health burden in India, and realizing the need for adequate and effective genetic testing and counselling services, Department of Biotechnology along with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfarehas started the UMMID Initiative which is designed on the concept of Prevention is better than Cure.

Aim

• To establish NIDAN Kendras to provide counselling, prenatal testing and diagnosis, management, and multidisciplinary care in Government Hospitals wherein the influx of patients is more.
• To produce skilled clinicians in Human Genetics.
• To undertake screening of pregnant women and new born babies for inherited genetic diseases in hospitals at aspirational districts.
• As a part of this initiative, in the first phase, five NIDAN Kendrashave been established to provide comprehensive clinical care.

Explanation :

• With effect from 3rd September 2019, India has been declared free from Avian Influenza (H5N1), which has also been notified to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
• India was last declared free of the disease in 2017.
• Humans can be infected with avian, swine and other zoonotic influenza viruses, such as avian influenza virus subtypes A(H5N1), A(H7N9), and A(H9N2) and swine influenza virus subtypes A(H1N1), A(H1N2) and A(H3N2).

Avian Influenza

• It refers to the disease caused by infection with avian (bird) influenza (flu) Type A viruses.
• It was first reported from Hong Kong in 1997. Since then, there have been many outbreaks across the world. India too has had multiple outbreaks since 2005.
• Human infections are primarily acquired through direct contact with infected animals or contaminated environments, these viruses have not acquired the ability of sustained transmission among humans.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

• The government’s plan of establishing National Genomic Grid for India-specific cancer research, the grid to be formed will be in line with the National Cancer Tissue Biobank.
• It will collect samples from cancer patients to study genomic factors influencing cancer and identifying the right treatment modalities for the Indian population.
• It will have four parts, with the country divided into east, west, north and south.

National Cancer Tissue Biobank (NCTB)

• It is a state-of-the-art non-profit community-based tissue bank, is a joint initiative of Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India and Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM).
• It is the first of its kind facility in India, aimed at providing researchers with high quality of cancer tissues and the patient data in order to facilitate cancer research that will lead to improvements in cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

• It is an over-arching initiative to improve school education system by creating a junction for all online portals and websites relating to various activities of the Department of School Education and Literacy in the Government of India.
• The word ‘Shagun’ is coined from two different words-
• ‘Shala’ meaning Schools
• ‘Gunvatta’ meaning Quality
• Websites of 1200 KendriyaVidyalayas, 600 NavodayaVidyalayas, 18000 other CBSE affiliated schools, 30 SCERTs, 19000 organisations affiliated with NTCE among others are integrated with Shagun.
• An Integrated National School Education Treasury (INSET) will be set up which envisages a fully integrated, instantly accessible and seamless information network for all parameters relating to the students, teachers, and schools in the country.

Significance

• The newly created platform will provide all school related information at one place .This will help students, parents and other stakeholders in ensuring all round development of the child. This platform will not only give information but people can also give their suggestions, which will help in the creation of a better system.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

• On 17^th august, 2019, the Chief Justice of Punjab & Haryana High Court launched the first Virtual Court at Faridabad through video conferencing.
• This Virtual Court will deal with traffic challan cases of the entire State of Haryana. It is aimed at eliminating presence of litigant in the Court and adjudication of the case online.
• The project has been launched under the guidance of e-Committee of Supreme Court of India and the software has been developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC).
• Under this project, the cases received in the Virtual Court can be viewed by the Judge along with automatic computation of fines on the screen.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online