Current Affairs Apr 3 – GES Reporter

National Policy for Rare Diseases, 2021

Why in News?

Caregivers to patients with ‘rare diseases’ and affiliated organisations are dissatisfied with the National Policy for Rare Diseases, 2021 announced recently.
There are 7,000-8,000 classified rare diseases, but less than 5% have therapies available to treat them.
About 95% rare diseases have no approved treatment and less than 1 in 10 patients receive disease-specific treatment.
These diseases have differing definitions in various countries and range from those that are prevalent in 1 in 10,000 of the population to 6 per 10,000.
India lacks epidemiological data on the prevalence here and hence has only classified certain diseases as ‘rare.’

History

The policy was first prepared by the Centre in 2017 but put on hold.
There were “implementation” challenges pointed out by States with the key question again remaining about costs: How would States and Centre share the costs of treatment?; What diseases would be covered? and who would benefit?
An expert group was constituted in 2018 to review these questions. The committee submitted its report this January and after a further round of consultation the policy was made public recently.

Three groups

A ‘rare disease’ has been categorised into three groups.
Diseases in the first group would be eligible for a one-time treatment cost of up to ₹20 lakh provided the beneficiaries conformed to definition of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana and were treated in government tertiary care hospital.
For Group 2 diseases, States could “consider” supporting patients of such rare diseases that could be managed with special diets or hormonal supplements.
The government would notify selected Centres of Excellence at premier government hospitals for comprehensive management of rare diseases.
The Centres of Excellence would be provided a one-time grant to a maximum of ₹5 crore each for infrastructure development for screening, tests, treatment.

‘No consideration’

Union government has left patients with Group 3 rare diseases to fend for themselves in the National Policy for Rare Diseases 2021.
The new policy has absolutely no consideration for Group 3 patients, who require lifelong treatment support.
In the absence of a sustainable funding support for Group 3 patients, the precious lives of all patients, mostly children, are now at risk and at the mercy of crowdfunding.
Even Group 1 is only for few and Group 2 has been openly left for the State government.

THE HINDU

Reversion of education to State list

Why in News?

The demand for reverting education to the State list from the Concurrent list has echoed strongly in the manifestos of many parties this Assembly election.
This comes against the backdrop of Tamil Nadu’s vociferous demand to exempt the State from NEET for medical admissions and its opposition to the Central government’s National Education Policy (NEP 2020).
Parties have argued that the NEP will further deprive the State of its rights on education.
Education was in the State list and was shifted to the Concurrent list during the emergency.

THE HINDU

Cave belonging to megalithic era found

Why in News?

A cave that was found during the renovation work of Sri Ananta Padmanabha Temple at Paniyadi in Udupi recently belongs to the megalithic period.
The cave belongs to 800 BC and is of 2,000 years old in antiquity.
Similar megalithic rock-cut caves have been found at Pavanje Subrahmanya Temple, Sooda Subrahmanya Temple, Sasturu Subrahmanya Temple and elsewhere in coastal Karnataka.

About Discovery

Discovery is unique in understanding the antiquity of the Phanis.
Pani and Haadi, together forming Paniyadi, means settlement of Phanis.
Phanis were referred to in the Mahabharatha and the Puranas as an ancient original inhabitants of the country.
Places such as Paniyur, Paniyadi in Udupi district indicate the existence of Phanis settlements in the past. Phanis were famous for their Naga worship while Naga was their totemic emblem.
Paniyadi’s presiding deity Ananta Padbhanabha was also related with Naga worship.
Iconographically, he was Para Vasudeva, a Vaisnavate god. He sits on the Naga coil and the Naga hood stands high on his head. A similar icon found in Keelinje near Udupi belongs to 10th Century AD, while the Paniyadi deity belongs to 14th Century AD.
The idol of the presiding deity, Ananta Padmanabha, is a unique one as it is in a sitting posture atop Adi Sesha.

THE HINDU

Mumbai’s crime intelligence unit

Why in News?

Until his arrest in March, controversial Assistant Inspector Sachin Waze was heading the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) of the Mumbai Police.

Intel & logistics

The CIU was set up as an ancillary unit providing intelligence and logistical support to various units of the Mumbai Police.
But since its inception in 1990, its public image has been shaped by its focus on encounters, manned as it was by so-called “encounter specialists” associated with the killing of alleged criminals and gangsters in encounters, some of which embroiled the police in serious trouble for being “fake”.
It should act as the “eyes and ears” of the Mumbai Police and gather intelligence on terror organisations and the underworld.
Although Mumbai Police’s “special branch” was also an intelligence unit, it was more focused on gathering information related to law and order situations such as the mill strikes of those years.
The police needed a specialised unit dedicated to intelligence on criminals.

Covid-19 pandemic has affected pregnancy outcomes

Why in News?

Pregnancy outcomes for mothers and babies have worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a review of data from 40 studies representing 17 countries published in The Lancet Global Health.
Findings varied by country but analysis of pooled data showed stillbirth and maternal mortality rates increased by approximately one-third during the pandemic compared to life before Covid-19 took hold.
Analysis of the pooled data found the chances of a stillbirth increased by more than a quarter compared with pre-pandemic instances.
The current case fatality rate for Covid 19 in India is 1.3%, most of which are of the older age group.
Covid-related direct death rate among pregnant women is like the general population.
However, due to delay in seeking care, there are pregnancy related complications and therefore Covid-attributed death rate has increased.

Rapid global heating is hurting farm productivity

The climate crisis is already eating into the output of the world’s agricultural systems, with productivity much lower than it would have been if humans hadn’t rapidly heated the planet, new research has found.
Advances in technology, fertilizer use and global trade have allowed food production to keep pace with a booming global population since the 1960s.
Productivity has actually slumped by 21% since 1961, compared to if the world hadn’t been subjected to human-induced heating.
With the global population set to rise to more than 9 billion by 2050, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that food production will have to increase by about 70%, with annual crop production increasing by almost one 1bn tonnes and meat production soaring by more than 200m tonnes a year by this point.
The research measured productivity by inputs – such as labor, fertilizer and equipment – and the output in food they produce, using a model to determine how climate change has influenced this relationship.
While farming has generally become far more efficient in recent decades, it is increasingly menaced by heatwaves that exhaust farm workers and wither certain crops.
Extreme weather events and drought can also affect the output of a farm, particularly smaller operations in poorer countries.
The intensification of farming to boost output has in itself caused major environmental damage, through the deforestation of grazing land, loss of valuable topsoil, pollution from pesticides and the release of vast amounts of greenhouse gases that contribute to global heating.

THE GUARDIAN

Greater Melanoma Risk

Why in News?

Men with high levels of testosterone have an increased risk of developing a potentially deadly skin cancer.

Research Findings

According to Cancer Research UK, one in 36 UK males and one in 47 UK females will be diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer in their lifetime.
It said 86% of melanoma cases were preventable, typically caused by use of sunbeds or staying out in the sun, but other factors played a role in who is most at risk, including age and genetics.
Testosterone levels may also be a factor, at least in men.
The results show that for men, higher levels of testosterone, whether freely or in total, were associated with a greater risk of developing malignant melanoma.
Indeed, each 50 pmol/L increase in free testosterone was found to raise the chance of developing this cancer by 35%.
Among other findings, higher levels of freely circulating testosterone were associated with a greater risk of prostate cancer in men, while in post-menopausal women, higher levels of testosterone, whether freely circulating or in total, were associated with a greater chance of endometrial and breast cancer.
This large study showing a possible link of testosterone to skin cancer adds an insight into another cancer that could be prevented or treated using hormones.
Already treated treat prostate cancer using anti-testosterone medication and there is some evidence that prostate cancer could be prevented with anti-testosterone medication.

THE GUARDIAN

Forest fires, soaring heat to affect honey output

Forest fires, coupled with soaring temperatures in and around Similipal Biosphere Reserve in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, are likely to affect the honey output, jeopardising the livelihoods of tribal people in the district.
Collection and cultivation of raw honey is an important occupation for forest dwellers, especially for the around 2,000 families belonging to particularly vulnerable tribal groups like Khadia, Mankadia, who live near the reserve.
The honey harvesting season is from April to June.
Wild honeybees make hives every year on the same trees, which tribal people term as ‘honey trees.’
The honey bees could not have stayed in the jungle when the entire area was engulfed in the smoke.
The bees generally survive at temperatures of 20-35 degrees Celsius.
When temperatures in the area hovered at 40-44 degrees Celsius, the bees flew away, affecting the honey harves.

DTE

Arctic winter sea ice in 2021 joint seventh-lowest on record

Sea ice in the Arctic has reached its maximum extent for 2021 — tying with 2007’s as the seventh-smallest extent of winter sea ice. This may mean that the Arctic is losing more ice than it can recover.
The ice peaked at 14.77 million square kilometres (km2) on March 21, according to scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
The NSIDC has termed the development as “uneventful maximum”. It, however, noted it followed an “exceptional” year for sea ice: Arctic’s summer minimum in September 2020 was the second-lowest on record.
The ice extent in the Arctic changes throughout the year: It grows during the winter before reaching its peak in February or March. It then melts throughout the spring and summer towards its annual minimum, which is typically in September.

Arctic Oscillation

The low ice extent, according to NSIDC, was because of the positive phase of the phenomenon called Arctic Oscillation. During this phase, a ring of strong winds circulating around the North Pole acts to confine colder air across Polar Regions.
This pattern transported ice from the Siberian coast, across the pole and out of the Arctic Ocean, leaving thinner ice along the Siberian coast which was more prone to melting.

DTE

Intensity of tropical cyclones to increase next century

Why in News?

The intensity of cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons might increase in the next century due to global warming.

Study Says

Scientist concluded that there could be a five per cent increase in maximum cyclonic wind speeds if the world warmed by two degree Celsius by 2100.
Wind speeds of a cyclone can peak at more than 300 kilometres per hour and cause damage to public infrastructure like electric poles, houses and vegetation.
Cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons are the same but named differently based on which ocean they form in. They are created by warm ocean waters.
Rising sea water levels will likely intensify the destructive impact of the cyclonic storms due to increased storm surges which inundate coastal areas during an ongoing storm, bringing in sea-water that decreases soil fertility and corrodes buildings.
To add to the misery, the amount of rainfall carried by the storms might also increase by an average of 14 per cent due to the warming-fuelled increase in moisture in the atmosphere which can cause more intense floods.
Hurricane Dorian — a Category 5 storm — in September 2019 had drowned the Bahamas islands as it moved at a slow pace.
Slow moving storms generally carry more rainfall. Typically, a cyclone moving at around eight km per hr can cause up to 760 millimetres (mm) of rainfall.
There are other impacts of warming on tropical cyclones such as rapid intensification which could make them unpredictable and difficult to monitor.
Rapid intensification happens when there is an increase of maximum sustained winds of a cyclone by at least 55 kilometres per hour within 24 hours.
In 2020, Cyclone Amphan displayed rapid intensification when it developed from a cyclone (wind speeds of 70-80 km per hr) to a super cyclone (wind speeds in excess of 220 km per hr) in about 40 hours.
Stronger storms might occur in areas closer to the North and South Poles which means that seas in these regions are becoming warmer. Countries which had never felt the impacts of cyclones might start witnessing them.

DTE

Over half the world’s 10-year-olds won’t have adequate literacy by year-end

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic increased the number of children lacking basic literacy at the age of 10 by nearly 17 per cent, according to a new analysis.
This means 70 million children — over half the world’s 10-year-olds — will not have literacy expected at that age.
If the trend continues, the number of children lacking basic literacy when they turn 10 could rise to 750 million between 2020 and 2030.
Moreover, this “learning poverty” will substantially diminish the global recruitment pool for skilled health workers by 2030.
This global learning crisis will hit Africa and Asia particularly hard, with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for 40 percent of children at risk.
Girls are at greater risk, with an estimated 20 million never returning to school.
The calculations are based on figures released by the World Bank, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations population data.

DTE

Fungi could manipulate bacteria to enrich soil with nutrients

A team of researchers has discovered a distinct group of bacteria that may help fungi and plants acquire soil nutrients.
The findings could point the way to cost-effective and eco-friendly methods of enriching soil and improving crop yields, reducing farmers’ reliance on conventional fertilizers.
Researchers know that arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi establish symbiotic relationships with the roots of 70% of all land plants.
In this relationship, plants trade fatty acids for the fungi’s nitrogen and phosphorus. However, AM fungi lack the enzymes needed to free nitrogen and phosphorus from complex organic molecules.
The team examined bacteria living on the surfaces of long filament-like structures called hyphae, which the fungi extend into the soil far from their host plant. On hyphae from two species of fungi, the team discovered highly similar bacterial communities whose composition was distinct from those in the surrounding soil.
Just like the human gut or plant roots, the hyphae of AM fungi have their own unique microbiomes.
Enriching the soil for some of these bacteria could increase crop yields and, ultimately, reduce the need for conventional fertilizers along with their associated costs and environmental impacts.

Phys.org