PIB Summary- 9th November, 2023 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

India’s Progress in TB Control

Context
Recently World Health Organization released its Global TB Report 2023.

Key Highlights of India’s Progress in TB Control

• Improved Case Detection: India has made significant progress in improving case detection for tuberculosis (TB). The treatment coverage has increased to 80% of estimated TB cases, representing a 19% increase from the previous year.
• Reduction in TB Incidence: India has managed to reduce TB incidence by 16% in 2022 compared to 2015. This reduction is nearly double the global rate of TB incidence decline, which stands at 8.7%.
• Decline in TB Mortality: Both India and the global TB mortality rates have decreased by 18% during the same period. The World Health Organization (WHO) revised the TB mortality rates for India, reducing them by over 34%, from 4.94 lakhs in 2021 to 3.31 lakhs in 2022.
• Collaboration with WHO: India and the WHO collaborated extensively to refine and finalize the data, involving over 50 meetings between technical teams. The data included evidence generated within the country, mathematical modeling, and information from the Ni-kshay portal, which tracks the treatment course of TB patients.
• Intensified Case Detection Strategies: India’s intensified case detection strategies led to the highest-ever notification of TB cases in 2022, with over 24.22 lakh cases reported, surpassing pre-COVID levels. Active case finding drives, molecular diagnostics scaling, decentralization of screening services, and private sector engagement have contributed to bridging the gap in missing cases.
• Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan: This initiative has garnered a tremendous response, with over 1 lakh Ni-kshay Mitras adopting more than 11 lakh TB patients. The Ni-kshay Poshan Yojana has disbursed about Rs 2613 crore to over 95 lakh TB patients since its launch in 2018. New patient-centric initiatives, such as the Family Care Giver Model and Differentiated Care, aim to reduce mortality and improve treatment success rates.
• Investment in TB Elimination: India has demonstrated a commitment to prioritize TB elimination efforts by investing additional resources in the National TB Elimination Programme under the National Health Mission.

Tuberculosis

• TB remains the world’s deadliest infectious killer.
• Each day, over 4000 people lose their lives to TB and close to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease
• TB is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs.
• Transmission: TB is spread from person to person through the air. When people with TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air.
• Symptoms: Cough with sputum and blood at times, chest pains, weakness, weight loss, fever and night sweats.
• Treatment: TB is a treatable and curable disease. It is treated with a standard 6 month course of 4 antimicrobial drugs that are provided with information, supervision and support to the patient by a health worker or trained volunteer.
• Anti-TB medicines have been used for decades and strains that are resistant to 1 or more of the medicines have been documented in every country surveyed.
• Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a form of TB caused by bacteria that do not respond to isoniazid and rifampicin, the 2 most powerful, first-line anti-TB drugs. MDR-TB is treatable and curable by using second-line drugs.
• Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) is a more serious form of MDR-TB caused by bacteria that do not respond to the most effective second-line anti-TB drugs, often leaving patients without any further treatment options

Krishi 24/7

Context
Recently, the Union Agriculture Ministry, in collaboration with the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Wadhwani AI), developed Krishi 24/7.

Krishi 24/7 – The AI-Powered Agricultural News Monitoring Solution

• Innovation in Agriculture: Krishi 24/7 is a pioneering AI-powered solution designed for automated agricultural news monitoring and analysis. The initiative receives support from Google.org, demonstrating the fusion of technology and agriculture.
• Multi-Lingual Scanning: One of its prominent features is the ability to scan news articles in various languages, transcending language barriers. It then translates these articles into English, making them more accessible for analysis.
• Extracting Essential Information: Krishi 24/7 goes a step further by extracting crucial information from these news articles. It identifies and compiles data like headlines, crop names, event types, dates, locations, severity, summaries, and source links. This systematic extraction ensures that the Ministry of Agriculture receives prompt and relevant updates about events published on the web.
• Fulfilling a Crucial Need: The introduction of Krishi 24/7 addresses the significant requirement for an efficient mechanism that can identify and manage agricultural news articles. This is instrumental in facilitating timely decision-making processes, particularly for events that impact the agricultural sector.
• Supporting the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare: Krishi 24/7 plays a pivotal role in aiding the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW). By helping identify pertinent news articles, generating timely alerts, and enabling swift action, the solution protects farmers’ interests and fosters sustainable agricultural growth through improved and informed decision-making.