UPSC Prelims News 7 November 2022

UPSC Prelims News of 7 November 2022

Filariasis

Context: The Union government has declared five districts in Andhra Pradesh as filariasis-free.

About Filariasis:

Cause	Filariasis is a parasitic disease caused by microscopic, nematodes (roundworms) of the family Filariodidea. These worms can only survive in human lymph system.
Transmission	Filariasis is spread by blood-feeding insects such as black flies and mosquitoes.
Prevalence	The disease is prevalent in tropical and subtropical parts of southern Asia, Africa, the South Pacific, and parts of South America.
Symptoms	Majority of infected people have no symptoms and will never develop clinical symptoms. Infection can only be detected after testing.
Effects	People with the disease can suffer from lymphedema and elephantiasis (swelling of legs). Men can also suffer from swelling of the scrotum, called hydrocele.
Treatment	There are certain drug that kills the microfilariae and some of the adult worms. These drugs do not work against people suffering from elephantiasis as they are not actively infected with the filarial parasite.
Prevention	The best method to prevent lymphatic filariasis is to avoid mosquito bites. The mosquitoes that carry the parasite usually bite between the hours of dusk and dawn. Entire community must be provided medicine that kills the microscopic worms.

Lambadi Dance

Context: Folk artists performed the fusion dance form “Lambadi dance” at the National Tribal Festival.

About Lambadi Dance

Lambadi dance is a folk dance of the Banjara tribe.
Lambadi dance is performed to seek blessing from god for a good harvest.
Mainly women perform the Lambadi folk dance.
Lambadi is a mix of Rajasthan and Telangana cultures.

About National Tribal Dance Festival

Raipur hosted the 3rd National Tribal Dance Festival.
It was celebrated from November 1-3, 2022.
More than 1,500 tribal performers from India and ten other nations, including Mozambique, Mongolia, Tongo, Russia, Indonesia, Maldives, Serbia, New Zealand, and Egypt, are performing at the event.

Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA)

Context: The Central Consumer Protection Authority has passed order against Cloudtail India Pvt. Ltd. for violation of consumer rights and unfair trade practice by selling domestic pressure cookers in violation to mandatory standards prescribed as per Domestic Pressure Cooker (Quality Control) Order, 2020.

More on the News:

CCPA initiated suo-moto action against e-commerce platforms for sale of domestic pressure cookers in violation to compulsory standards on its e-commerce platforms.

About CCPA

CCPA is being constituted under Section 10(1) of The Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
Objective: To promote, protect and enforce the rights of consumers as a class.
Powers: It is empowered to conduct investigations into violation of consumer rights and institute complaints / prosecution, order recall of unsafe goods and services, order discontinuation of unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements, impose penalties on manufacturers/endorsers/publishers of misleading advertisements.

Malaria Vaccine

Context: The new vaccine against Malaria has shown promising results.

About RTS,S/AS01 Vaccine:

WHO in October 2021 approved for RTS,S/AS01 (Mosquirix) developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for immunizing children.
However, RTS,S/AS01 has modest efficacy and reduces severe malaria cases by only about 30 per cent after four doses given to children under age 5.
It provides significant public health benefits, and could save thousands of lives every year.
GSK has granted Bharat Biotech license to manufacture Mosquirix, and by 2029, the Hyderabad-based company is expected to be the sole global manufacturer of this vaccine.
R21/Matrix M:
- R21/Matrix M, developed by the University of Oxford in the UK, demonstrated an efficacy of 77 per cent in phase 1 and 2 trials among 450 children in Burkina Faso.

Working of Vaccines:

RTS,S and R21 are similar in that they both contain the same part of a major protein that is found on the surface of the liver stage parasite, called sporozoite.
Both also contain hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg), a protein that has an ability to self-assemble and that helps as the formation of virus-like particles of the CSP antigen fused with it.

South Asia Drought Monitoring System (SADMS)

Context: A new satellite-based drought-monitoring tool is providing authorities with the maximum possible lead time to put mitigation strategies into place in India and across South Asia.

About South Asia Drought Monitoring System (SADMS)

In India, the SADMS was developed by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
It has been tested in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Afghanistan and Bhutan.
Features:
- The system will indicate the presence of drought and its level of severity using satellite-based data.
- The system will not just monitor the drought conditions but also incorporate this information
- of real-time weather updates and open-access satellite data, and provide extension workers as well as agriculture and water resources authorities with all the information needed to forecast, monitor and manage drought on a weekly basis.
How will it help the farmers?
- It will help the farmers to decide which crops to grow.
- During the drought seasons, they can choose to grow drought-tolerant crops like millet over water-intensive crops like rice.
Current status in India:
- The platform is already in operation in the state of Telangana.
- From 2017, ICAR used SADMS to implement real-time contingency measures.
- It helped farmers in three districts of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra to obtain drought-tolerant seeds, develop supplementary irrigation and apply potassium nitrate (which helps seedlings cope better with dry conditions).

Stats IQ: Droughts over India and South Asia

India featured as one of the severely drought-impacted countries in the United Nation’s latest drought assessment.
Nearly two-thirds of the country suffered drought during 2020-2022.
Severe droughts have reduced India’s GDP by 2-5 per cent over the 20 years from 1998-2017, studies estimated.
Not only India, the whole of South Asia faced several droughts in the recent decades and 50 major droughts have been reported since 1990, affecting over 750 million people with economic damages estimated at $7 billion.