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Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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‘India short of 6 lakh doctors, 2 million nurses: U.S. study

News

  • India has a shortage of an estimated 600,000 doctors and 2 million nurses, say scientists who found that the lack of staff who are properly trained in administering antibiotics is preventing patients from accessing live-saving drugs.
  • Even when antibiotics are available, patients are often unable to afford them. High out-of-pocket medical costs to the patient are compounded by limited government spending for health services, according to the report by the U.S.-based Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP).

Findings

  • In India, 65% of health expenditure is out-of-pocket, and such expenditures push some 57 million people into poverty each year.
  • The majority of the world’s annual 5.7 million antibiotic-treatable deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, where the mortality burden from treatable bacterial infections far exceeds the estimated annual 700,000 deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections.
  • Researchers at CDDEP in the U.S. conducted stakeholder interviews in Uganda, India, and Germany, and literature reviews to identify key access barriers to antibiotics in low-, middle-, and high-income countries. Health facilities in many of these countries are substandard.
  • In India, there is one government doctor for every 10,189 people (the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends a ratio of 1:1,000), or there is a deficit of 600,000 doctors, and the nurse:patient ratio is 1:483, implying a shortage of two million nurses.
  • The findings of the report show that even after the discovery of a new antibiotic, regulatory hurdles and substandard health facilities delay or altogether prevent widespread market entry and drug availability.
  • Worldwide, the irrational use of antibiotics and poor antimicrobial stewardship lead to treatment failure and propagate the spread of drug resistance which, in turn, further narrows the available array of effective antibiotics.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

India-US ties promoted in sustained manner by Trump: report

News

  • The Trump administration has worked to make India a more prominent part of its regional strategy, lauding President Donald Trump for promoting strategic ties with India in a “sustained manner”.

Beyond News

  • Asserting that the Trump administration has maintained the success story of US-India relations initiated by George W Bush, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in its report gives the US President a high B+ grade when it comes to America’s ties with India.
  • The Trump administration has worked to make India a more prominent part of its regional strategy. After changing the name of US Pacific Command to US Indo-Pacific Command in May 2018, the United States is now planning its first tri-service exercise with the Indian military.
  • President Trump’s inclinations, as conveyed through his South Asia strategy, which accords primacy to India; his release of advanced weapons systems, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, for sale to New Delhi; and his decision to treat India on par with NATO allies where strategic technology release is concerned are all viewed as favourable toward India.
  • New Delhi has accordingly responded with bold initiatives of its own.
  • Although it has not entirely endorsed the Trump administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, it has applauded the strategy’s declared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region a concept first articulated by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, with whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoys an exceptionally close relationship.

Drug board recommends mandatory QR coding for API

News

  • With the aim of ensuring assured quality and limiting the flow of fake drugs into the market, the Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) has recommended “making it mandatory to have QR coding on labels of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) the most important constituent of any drug formulation for tracing the origin and movement of APIs from manufacturers to formulators through a system of networking.’’

Beyond News

  • India’s top drug advisory body DTAB noted that in the supply chain for APIs, the “security and integrity in proper storage condition” played a very important role to enhance quality supply.
  • It added that in various fora, stake holders had suggested incorporating a system of QR coding on the packing of APIs for tracing the origin and movement of the drug ingredients.
  • DTAB after detailed deliberation has now recommended to include necessary provisions under the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, for this, confirmed a senior Health ministry official.
  • The QR coding for API will provide key benefits including better price control and more effective quality control.
  • APIs are the active raw materials used in medicines to give them their therapeutic effect. Currently, India relies on other nations for 60%-80% of its API supplies and the Health ministry has been working to reduce the dependence on China.
  • Recently, the Supreme Court had directed the central government to devise a mechanism that would help ensure consumers could benefit from price control of drugs. The ministry says it has been working on introducing QR coding for medicine packaging, which can then be linked to software supervised by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Lakes filled with liquid methane spotted on Saturn’s moon Titan

News

  • Scientists provided the most comprehensive look to date at one of the solar system’s most exotic features: prime lakeside property in the northern polar region of Saturn’s moon Titan – if you like lakes made of stuff like liquid methane.

Findings

  • Using data obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft before that mission ended in 2017 with a deliberate plunge into Saturn, the scientists found that some of frigid Titan’s lakes of liquid hydrocarbons in this region are surprisingly deep while others may be shallow and seasonal.
  • Titan and Earth are the solar system’s two places with standing bodies of liquid on the surface. Titan boasts lakes, rivers and seas of hydrocarbons: compounds of hydrogen and carbon like those that are the main components of petroleum and natural gas.
  • The researchers described landforms akin to Mesas towering above the nearby landscape, topped with liquid lakes more than 300 feet deep comprised mainly of methane. The scientists suspect the lakes formed when surrounding bedrock chemically dissolved and collapsed, a process that occurs with a certain type of lake on Earth.
  • The scientists also described “phantom lakes” that during wintertime appeared to be wide but shallow ponds perhaps only a few inches deep but evaporated or drained into the surface by springtime, a process taking seven years on Titan.
  • The findings represented further evidence about Titan’s hydrological cycle, with liquid hydrocarbons raining down from clouds, flowing across its surface and evaporating back into the sky. This is comparable to Earth’s water cycle.
  • Because of Titan’s complex chemistry and distinctive environments, scientists suspect it potentially could harbor life, in particular in its subsurface ocean of water, but possibly in the surface bodies of liquid hydrocarbons.
  • Titan, with a diameter of 5,150 km, is the solar system’s second largest moon, behind only Jupiter’s Ganymede. It is bigger than the planet Mercury.
  • Titan is the most Earth-like body in the solar system. It has lakes, canyons, rivers, dune fields of organic sand particles about the same size as silica sand grains on Earth.

Exports outpace imports at 11% in March

News

  • India’s exports rose to a five-month high of 11% in March on account of higher growth mainly in pharma, chemicals and engineering sectors, marking the outbound shipments at $331 billion for FY 2018-19, official data showed Monday.

Beyond News

  • Merchandise exports in March stood at $32.55 billion as against $29.32 billion in the same month last year.
  • This is the best growth rate for exports since October 2018, when shipments grew by 17.86%. Imports rose by 1.44% to $43.44 billion in March 2019. However, trade deficit the difference between exports and imports narrowed to $10.89 billion during the month under review as compared to $13.51 billion in March 2018.
  • Oil and gold imports rose by 5.55% and 31.22% to $11.75 billion and $3.27 billion.
  • For the full fiscal (2018-19), imports rose by 8.99% to $507.44 billion, widening the trade deficit to $176.42 billion as against $162 billion in 2017-18.
  • Data showed that oil imports in April-March 2018-19 grew by 29.27% to $140.47 billion, while non-oil imports were up by 2.82% to $366.97 billion during that fiscal.

Long range cruise missile Nirbhay test fired

News

  • The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully test-fired the underdevelopment long range subsonic cruise missile Nirbhay from the Integrated Test Range (ITR), Chandipur in Odisha.
  • It is the sixth development flight trial with objective to prove the repeatability of boost phase, cruise phase using way point navigation at low altitudes.

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