SCIENCE

General Science

Rabies in India

Approximately 20,000 of the 59,000 annual rabies deaths worldwide occur in India.
Main Source: stray dogs; approximately 20 million dog bite incidents are reported every year.
Dog population control: The method of catching, sterilizing, vaccinating, and releasing dogs (CNVR) is hampered by the high dog breeding rate (~40%).

Rabies

Cause: Rabies virus (Lyssavirus, Rhabdoviridae) that affects the central nervous system.
Mortality rate: 100% once symptoms of the disease appear.
Mode of transmission: Primarily through dog bites.
Prevention: 100% preventable through Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP).
Wound washing, complete rabies vaccination series, RIG/monoclonal antibodies for severe bites.
Global target: The World Health Organization, using a One Health approach, aims to end human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030.

India’s initiatives to control rabies:

Invasive mosquito species threatens India’s 2030 malaria elimination goal

The spread of the invasive Anopheles stephensi mosquito poses a serious threat to India’s malaria elimination target for 2030.
Anopheles stephensi has transformed urban malaria into a national public health challenge.
India has set a goal to eliminate malaria by 2030, with an interim target of zero indigenous cases by 2027, in line with WHO guidelines.
Malaria cases declined from 11.7 lakh in 2015 to 2.27 lakh in 2024.
Malaria-related deaths have decreased by 78% during the same period.
India has largely entered the pre-elimination phase of malaria.

Anopheles stephensi

It thrives in urban environments and breeds in artificial water containers such as tanks and tyres.
It is an efficient vector of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax.

LATEST INVENTIONS IN SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

PARAM Rudra Supercomputer

Bihar’s first PARAM Rudra supercomputer has been inaugurated at IIT Patna.
The project aims to develop indigenous high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities.
It strengthens advanced research and computing infrastructure in Eastern India.
Supercomputing capacity is measured in petaflops.

Under the National Supercomputing Mission, India has a total capacity of approximately 39 petaflops.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is the nodal ministry for the National Supercomputing Mission.

Major Indian Supercomputers

AIRAWAT – Artificial Intelligence Research, Analytics and Knowledge Assimilation Platform (PSAI).
PARAM Siddhi-AI
Pratyush – Cray XC40 supercomputer.
Mihir – Cray XC40 supercomputer.

Next Current Affairs Science >