Global Health Security Index 2021

👉The GHS Index is the first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of health security and related capabilities across the 195 countries that make up the States Parties to the International Health Regulations.

👉It is a project of the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and was first launched in October 2019.

👉It assesses countries across 6 categories, 37 indicators, and 171 questions using publicly available information.

👉It benchmarks health security in the context of other factors critical to fighting outbreaks, such as political and security risks, the broader strength of the health system, and country adherence to global norms.

👉In 2021, no country scored in the top tier of rankings and no country scored above 75.9, the report showed.

👉The world’s overall performance on the GHS Index score slipped to 38.9 (out of 100) in 2021, from a score of 40.2 in the GHS Index, 2019.

👉This, even as infectious diseases are expected to have the greatest impact on the global economy in the next decade.

👉Some 101 countries high-, middle- and low-income countries, including India, have slipped in performance since 2019


👉India, with a score of 42.8 (out of 100) too, has slipped by 0.8 points since 2019.

👉Three neighboring countries — Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives — have improved their score by 1-1.2 points.



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State Health index

👉Niti Aayog has released the fourth edition of its state health index for 2019-20.

👉The “Health Index” is part of a report commissioned by the NITI Aayog, the World Bank and the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry.

👉Health Index has been developed as a tool to leverage co-operative and competitive federalism to accelerate the pace of achieving health outcomes.

👉It would also serve as an instrument for “nudging” States & Union Territories (UTs) and the Central Ministries to a much greater focus on output and outcome-based measurement of annual performance than is currently the practice.

👉With the annual publication of the Index and its availability on public domain on a dynamic basis, it is expected to keep every stakeholder alert to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Goal number 3.

👉 The Health Index score is prepared based on the States’ performance across a large set of indicators that are divided into three broad domains — health outcomes, governance and information, and key inputs and processes.

👉Health outcomes, for instance, include parameters such as neonatal mortality rate, under-5 mortality rate and sex ratio at birth.

👉Governance includes institutional deliveries, average occupancy of senior officers in key posts earmarked for health.

✅For the fourth year in a row, Kerala has topped.

✅Uttar Pradesh has come in at the bottom.

✅Mizoram topped the health index among smaller states while Nagaland was ranked at the bottom.

✅Among union territories, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu was ranked at the top and Andaman & Nicobar was ranked at the bottom.


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Animal to Human Transplant (Xenotransplantation)

👉Recently, doctors transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life in the US.

👉Xenotransplantation involves the transplantation of nonhuman tissues or organs into human recipients.

👉This is the first successful transplant of a pig’s heart into a human being. However, it’s too soon to know if the operation really will work.

👉This time, a heart from a pig that had undergone gene-editing has been used to remove a sugar in its cells that’s responsible for that hyper-fast organ rejection.

👉Prior attempts at such transplants or xenotransplantation have failed. One of the biggest obstacles to transplantation is organ rejection.

👉This has re-sparked a debate over the use of pigs for human transplants, which many animal rights groups oppose.

👉This development could bring us one step closer to solving the global organ shortage.

👉In India, patients need 25,000-30,000 liver transplants annually. But only about 1,500 end up receiving them.

👉Pigs are increasingly becoming popular candidates for organ transplantation.

👉Pigs offer advantages over primates for organ procurements, because they are easier to raise and achieve adult human size in six months.

👉Pig heart valves are routinely transplanted into humans, and some patients with diabetes have received porcine pancreas cells.

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Lassa Fever

✔️The Lassa Fever-causing virus is found in West Africa and was first discovered in 1969 in Lassa, Nigeria.

✔️The fever is spread by rats and is primarily found in countries in West Africa including Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and Nigeria where it is endemic.

✔️Human beings can transmit the virus to each other through contact with infected bodily fluids.

✔️The best way to avoid getting infected is to avoid contact with rats.

✔️Ribavirin, an antiviral drug, has been used to successfully treat Lassa fever in patients.

✔️Mild symptoms include slight fever, fatigue, weakness and headache.

✔️Serious symptoms include bleeding, difficulty breathing, vomiting, facial swelling, pain in the chest, back, and abdomen and shock.

✔️Death can occur from two weeks of the onset of symptoms, usually as a result of multi-organ failure.


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Japanese Encephalitis

👉It is a disease caused by a flavivirus that affects the membranes around the brain.

👉Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is also a major cause of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) in India.

👉The disease is transmitted to humans through bites from infected mosquitoes of the Culex species.

👉These mosquitoes breed mainly in rice fields and large water bodies rich in aquatic vegetation.

👉Migratory birds along with pigs in the community also play an important role in the transmission of JE from one area to other areas.

👉Most people infected with JE do not have symptoms or have only mild symptoms.

👉However, a small percentage of infected people develop inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), with symptoms including sudden onset of headache, high fever, disorientation, coma, tremors and convulsions.

👉There is no antiviral treatment for patients with JE.

👉 Treatment, available, is supportive to relieve symptoms and stabilise the patient.

👉Safe and effective JE vaccines are available to prevent the disease.

👉In India, mass vaccination with JE vaccine was started in a phased manner subsequent to the major outbreak in 2005.

👉JE vaccination is also included under the Universal Immunisation Program of the Government of India.

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