Current Affair 1:

Global Cervical Cancer Elimination Forum

 

The “Global cervical cancer elimination forum: advancing the call to action” was held from 5 to 7 March 2024, in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

The first ever global forum towards combating cervical cancer saw donors pledging nearly $600 million in funding on March 5, 2024. The funding includes $400 million from the World Bank over three years, $180 million from American Charitable organisation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and $10 million from United Nations children’s agency UNICEF. The funds will be utilised to enhance global access to vaccination, screening and treatment for cervical cancer.

 

The Forum aimed to catalyze governments, donors, civil society, and others to commit to cervical cancer elimination and galvanize the global community.

WHO’s Global Strategy for Cervical Cancer Elimination, launched on 17 November 2020, lays out a clear path to eliminating the disease through vaccination, screening and treatment. The strategy sets out 3 clear targets to meet by 2030 to put countries on the path to elimination:

The World Health Organization has outlined the ‘90-70-90’ targets by 2030 — for 90% of girls to be fully vaccinated with the HPV vaccine by age 15, for 70% of women to undergo cervical cancer screening tests by the age of 35 and 45, and for 90% of women with cervical cancer to be treated.

About Cervical Cancer:

In context of India:

India’s interim Union Budget 2024-25 has emerged as a beacon of hope in support in encouraging the vaccination of girls (from nine to 14 years) against cervical cancer.

Despite advances in health care, cervical cancer remains the second most common cancer among women in India, with 1.27 lakh cases and around 80,000 deaths being reported annually.

The Sikkim Model

Within India, Sikkim’s exemplary approach to HPV vaccination is an example of an effective public health strategy. Through targeted efforts to educate teachers, parents, girls, health-care workers, and the media about the benefits of the HPV vaccine, Sikkim achieved vaccination coverage of 97% during its campaign rollout in 2018.

Closer to home, six out of the 11 South East Asia Region countries have introduced the HPV vaccine nationwide, i.e., Bhutan, Indonesia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Bhutan was the first low-middle income country (LMIC) to introduce a nationwide HPV vaccination programme for girls (12 to 18 years) in 2010 and achieved an initial coverage of 95% of targeted girls.

Current Affair 2:

Villagers oppose declaring ‘orans’ as deemed forests

 

News:

A recent state government notification has struck fear in Rajasthan community dwellers about losing access to forest produce and livelihoods. Communities, particularly those in western Rajasthan, are concerned about the state’s proposal to classify orans (sacred groves) as deemed forests.

It stated that as per the directives of Supreme Court, oran, Dev-vans and Rundhs as forest lands will be given the status of deemed forest.

Importance of orans for locals:

1. Locally called orans, these are lands where herders have been grazing their cows, sheep, and goats for centuries. The community has a close relationship with orans, which hold cultural and religious significance. The villagers use the forest area for cattle herding, pastures, and sustenance.
2. The villagers use gum, timber, forest produce and wild vegetables from orans for their livelihood and daily use.
3. Communities believe that once the oran is declared as deemed forest, they will be deprived of forest produce and access for herds and sheep in the forest area.

These people will have to vacate the land if the state forest department takes over. These concerns are legitimate as even the places of worship, last rites and religious events take place inside the oran and are related to the trees, water bodies and other entities of the scared groves.

As per the experts:

Deemed forest is forest land that has not been recorded as such by the Centre or States. Thus, to protect such lands from further degradation, the SC in TN Godavarman matter, by an order dated December 12, 1996, directed the state governments to identify such lands and stated that all ‘forest’ including deemed forests, will be covered under Section 2 of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.

The provisions under Section 2 prohibit non-forestry activity such as mining, deforestation, quarrying or building infrastructure projects on such forest land without permission from the central government.

The locals fear that, the move will restrict any person or community from accessing the forest for grazing or worshipping.

Current Affair 3:

FAO publishes first national report on AMR surveillance in India’s fisheries

 

News:

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) published the surveillance data of the Indian Network for Fishery and Animal Antimicrobial Resistance (INFAAR) for 2019-22.

This is the first report on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance trends in fisheries and livestock sector from India.

Background:

In India, the first National Action Plan on antimicrobial resistance was implemented from April 2017 to March 2022. The plan warrants an evidence-based database on antimicrobial usage and dynamics of antimicrobial resistance emerging in the animal sector including fisheries.

In this respect, Indian Council of Agricultural research (ICAR), with support from FAO, started a network programme on AMR surveillance in food animals and aquaculture – known as Indian Network on Fisheries and Animal Antimicrobial Resistance (INFAAR) – in 2017.

The long-term goal of the INFAAR programme aims to identify strategies to prevent and reduce the development and spread of AMR, for protection of animal/ human health and food safety in India.

All member laboratories of INFAAR are following the uniform standard operating protocols for undertaking antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). All participating labs are sharing data on pre-agreed organisms and antimicrobial agents at a regular interval.

Why INFAAR is needed?

Currently, there is limited data available on AMR in the livestock and aquaculture sectors in India. Most of them are individual studies with limited geographical coverage, samples and questionable quality. Thus, it is important to quantify the burden of AMR in food-producing animals and aquaculture through structured surveillance with a pan-India coverage.

Implementation of INFAAR is aimed to document AMR in different production systems, describe the spread of resistant bacterial strains and resistance genes, identify trends in resistance and generate hypotheses about sources and reservoirs of resistant bacteria through a structured national surveillance programme.

Current Affair 4:

Country in news

 

We will see tow counties today:

1. Haiti capital a ‘city under siege: Haiti's government declared a 72-hour state of emergency on Sunday after armed gangs stormed a major prison.

United States Marine Corps reportedly evacuating embassy staff from the capital, Port-au-Prince.

2. Yaoundé Declaration

In a historic gathering in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé, African health ministers, global malaria partners, funding agencies, scientists, civil society organisations and other principal malaria stakeholders pledged to end malaria deaths, especially given the tools and systems available.

 

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