Pneumonia and Diarrhoea Progress Report
- Recently, the International Vaccine Access Centre (IVAC) has released the latest annual Pneumonia and Diarrhoea Progress Report (PDPR).
- It is an annual report which tracks progress towards 10 key indicators in the 15 countries with the highest mortality burden of pneumonia and diarrhoea in children under 5.
- The report tracked progress by analysing 10 indicators from the latest available data on how countries are delivering key interventions to prevent pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths, this includes
- Breastfeeding & Immunisation,
- Care-seeking & Antibiotics,
- Oral rehydration solution (ORS),
- Zinc supplementation,
- Key highlights of the recent report are as follows
- Pneumonia continues to kill more children under five worldwide than any other single infectious disease.
- Diarrheal diseases which is the second leading infectious cause of death of children under 5, claimed the lives of 437,000 young children.
- Globally, over 1.23 million children died of pneumonia and diarrhoea before reaching their 5th birthday which is equivalent of over 141 child deaths per hour or 3,400 deaths per day.
- India failed to reach all four targets for treatment, adding that the treatment for diarrhoea had the lowest coverage, with only 51% of children receiving ORS and 20% getting zinc.
- India has achieved the global target of 90% coverage for three of the five vaccines whose coverage is monitored in the report, The vaccines are
- Diphtheria,
- Pertussis and Tetanus (DPT) vaccine,
- Measles-containing-vaccine first dose,
- Haemophilus influenza type B,
- Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV),
- Rotavirus vaccine.
Global Prevention Coalition
- Global Prevention Coalition (GPC) is a global coalition of United Nations Member States, donors, civil society organizations which was established in the year 2017 to support global efforts to accelerate HIV prevention.
- It includes the 25 highest HIV burden countries, UNAIDS Cosponsors, donors, civil society and private sector organizations.
- It aims to strengthen and sustain political commitment for primary prevention by setting a common agenda among key policy-makers, funders and programme implementers.
- Recently, the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare digitally addressed the Ministerial meeting of the Global Prevention Coalition (GPC) for Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) Prevention.
- It was hosted by Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on behalf of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition (GPC).
Param Siddhi
- Recently, Param Siddhi has achieved global ranking of 63 in TOP 500 most powerful non-distributed computer systems in the world.
- Param Siddhi is the high performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer established under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).
- It is installed in the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing’s (C-DAC) unit.
- The AI system will strengthen application development of packages in areas such as advanced materials and computational chemistry & astrophysics.
- The National Super Computing Mission (NSM) is rapidly boosting high power computing in the country through its various phases to meet the increasing computational demands.
- These super computers are used by academia, researchers, MSMEs, and startups in areas like oil exploration, flood prediction as also genomics, and drug discovery.
- The highlight of the NSM is to build more Peta Flops, High-Performance Computing (HPC) Facilities with convergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Other Super Computers of India are
- Pratyush - It is a supercomputer used for weather forecasting at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune.
- It is the 4.O Peta flops (PF) high performance computer.
- It was ranked 78th on the November edition of the list.
- Mihir - It is installed at the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast in Noida.
- It was ranked 146th on the November edition of the list.
- Param Super Computers and its locations
- PARAM Shivay - IIT-BHU
- PARAM Shakti - IIT-Kharagpur
- PARAM Bhrahma - Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER), Pune.
Direct Energy Weapons
- Microwave Weapons are supposed to be a type of direct energy weapons, which aim highly focused energy in the form of sonic, laser, or microwaves, at a target.
- These weapons are based on the principle that microwave radiation of a certain kind can cause a buzzing sensation in the head, due to a phenomenon known as the Thermo Elastic effect.
- Such a weaponized microwave beam may cause a very slight expansion of the brain and produce a sound-like pressure, which strictly speaking is not really sound but can be traumatic.
- Broadly speaking, DEWs are of two types
- High-energy lasers - These laser weapons can knock off rockets and missiles at the speed of light
- High power microwaves - These weapons can use an electromagnetic explosion to take out the entire communication network of the enemy and destroy its electronic equipment.
- While they both comprise radio waves and light waves, lasers have shorter wavelength and higher frequency while microwaves have longer wavelength and low frequency.
- The idea behind both is to use powerful energy beams to hit targets (and in some cases destroy them) without much collateral damage.
- DEWs can inflict a wide variety of damage on an individual including dizziness, nausea and convulsions.
- The pain and severity of repercussions can be increased by changing the frequency.
- Recently India has denied reports that Chinese forces at the LAC used microwave weapons against Indian troops in eastern Ladakh.
Microwave weapon capabilities of Different countries include
- Poly WB-1 - China had first put on display its “microwave weapon”, called Poly WB-1, at an air show in 2014.
- Active Denial System - The United States has also developed a prototype microwave-style weapon, which it calls the “Active Denial System”.
- Anti-Drone DEW Systems - India’s DRDO has developed two anti-drone DEW systems, and plans are afoot to invest in DEW tech in a big way.
Guillain Barre Syndrome
- Recently some patients infected with Covid-19 have been found suffering from Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS).
- Guillain Barre Syndrome is a very rare autoimmune disorder in which the patient's immune system attacks nerves.
- The exact cause of Guillain-Barre syndrome is unknown, but as per the World Health Organisation (WHO), GBS is often preceded by an infection.
- This could be a bacterial or viral infection.
- It may also be triggered by vaccine administration or surgery.
- In the past, patients of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), Zika virus, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Herpes virus and Campylobacter jejuni have shown symptoms of GBS.
- Symptoms of GBS include - Weakness or tingling sensations, which usually start in the legs, and can spread to the arms and face.
- Difficulty with facial movements, including speaking, chewing or swallowing.
- Double vision, rapid heart rate, low or high blood pressure.
- Complication will leads to respiratory failure as the worst outcome, or weakness and effect on walking and limb movement.
- Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) and Plasma therapy can be used as treatments
Herpes Virus
- Herpes results from infection with the herpes simplex virus (HSV).
- It causes sores or blisters to form in or around the mouth or genitals.
- Other symptoms incudes fever and fatigue.
Campylobacter Jejuni
- Campylobacteriosis is an infection by the Campylobacter bacteria. It is more commonly known as C. jejuni.
- It is among the most common bacterial infections of humans, often a foodborne illness.
- It produces bloody diarrhea or dysentery syndrome, mostly including cramps, fever and pain.
Sarna Religion
- Recently Jharkhand government has passed a resolution to recognise Sarna religion and include it as a separate code in the Census of 2021.
- The holy grail of the faith is “Jal, Jungle, Zameen” and its followers pray to the trees and hills while believing in protecting the forest areas.
- It is believed that 50 lakhs tribal in the entire country put their religion as ‘Sarna’ in the 2011 census, although it was not a code.
- Many of the tribals who follow this faith have later converted to Christianity, the state has more than 4% Christians most of whom are tribals.
- The population of Sarna tribals in the state has declined from the 38.3 per cent in 1931 to 26.02 per cent in 2011.
- One of the reasons for this was tribals who go for work in different states not being recorded in the Census, in other states they are not counted as Tribals.
- The separate code proposed by the state government will ensure recording of their population.
- If the Centre approves the new Sarna code, Census 2021 would have to make space for a new religion.
- Currently, citizens can choose from only six religions: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism.
Source: PIB, the Hindu, Indian Express
