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GS Paper: GS3-17.Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, Robotics, Nano-technology, Bio-technology and issues relating to Intellectual Property Rights.

  • Can Vitamin C prevent or cure novel Coronavirus infection?

  • [pib] How lipids play critical roles in infectious diseases

    A researcher from IIT Bombay is using biologically active lipid molecules as chemical biology tools to elucidate their biological disease-causing function.

    About the research

    • The research is focused to explore how lipids play critical roles in infectious diseases by intervening in cellular signaling, membrane trafficking, and protein function all of which are intimately involved in host-pathogen interplay.
    • The research works with lipids from Mycobacteria tuberculosis (Mtb), which synthesizes atypical lipids predisposed on its surface to interact with the human host membrane.
    • Using Mtb lipids as tools, the research elucidates a direct correlation between human host lipid membrane modification and modulation of associated signaling pathways by these exogenous Mtb lipids.

    What are Lipids?

    • A lipid is a biomolecule that is soluble in nonpolar solvents.
    • Non-polar solvents are typically hydrocarbons used to dissolve other naturally occurring hydrocarbon lipid molecules that do not (or do not easily) dissolve in water, including fatty acids, waxes, sterols, fat-soluble vitamins (such as vitamins A, D, E, and K), monoglycerides, diglycerides, triglycerides, and phospholipids.
    • The functions of lipids include storing energy, signaling, and acting as structural components of cell membranes.
    • Lipids have applications in the cosmetic and food industries as well as in nanotechnology.

    Role of Lipids

    • Lipids are important components of living cells and are responsible for maintaining the integrity of our cell membrane, which allows nutrients and drugs to pass through the cell.
    • These are commonly breached during infection and in diseases.
    • Lipids play a major role in altering cell membrane properties modulating lipid and protein diffusion and membrane organization.
    • Thus, changes in membrane properties control the proper functioning of cells and are harnessed by pathogens for their survival and infection.
    • Lipids critically dictate the molecular interactions of drugs with membranes influencing drug diffusion, partitioning, and accumulation, thereby underpinning lipid-composition specificity.

  • Time for a powerful display of humanity

    Context

    India is unprepared for dealing with the outbreak of coronavirus.

    Is India really faring better than the other countries?

    • 45 days for first 100,000: Globally, it took roughly 45 days for the first 100,000 cases. It is likely to take nine days for the next 100,000.
    • Death count: The global death count is now doubling every nine days and stands at 8,248, with 207,518 confirmed cases.
    • That is how epidemics work — they gather steam as infected individuals go on to infect even more people. Confirmed cases in India, as of today stand at 169.
      • It is much lower than in small countries such as Iceland (around 250). Could this really be the case that we have fared better than everyone else?
    • Probably India is not performing better: Testing in India remains abysmally low. Only about 10 in a million people in India have been tested, compared to say nearly 120 in a million in Thailand or 40 per million in Vietnam.
    • Why testing in not being done in India? The stated explanation is that the limited number of test kits are being conserved for when they are truly needed but when is the need greater than right now?
      • There are probably shortages even in being able to procure adequate supplies given that many countries are seeking to buy the limited stocks.
    • Importance of testing: Testing is the most important thing we could be doing right now.
      • As the Director-General of the World Health Organization, said recently about the need for more testing, “You cannot fight a fire blindfolded.”

    Avoiding undercounting

    • Timely identification is essential to prevent secondary infection: We need to identify coronavirus-infected patients in a timely manner in order to increase our chances of preventing secondary infections.
      • There is no shame in saying that we have far more cases than what we have detected so far.
    • K.’s admitted undercounting: Even the United Kingdom, which has a far better health system than India, has admitted that it is probably undercounting its true infections by a factor of 12, and is likely have about 10,000 cases.
      • Is it possible that India with 20 times their population has only 169 cases?
    • Preparedness to deal with a higher number of cases: If widespread testing were to commence in India, the number of confirmed cases would likely climb to the thousands very quickly. This is something we have to be prepared for without panic or fear-mongering.
    • Positive action: This is how epidemics move and the real numbers should spur us into positive action.
    • Strict measures by the government: At some stage, it is possible that the government may have to put in place very strict measures on quarantining and closures, much like what China had to do to control the epidemic in Wuhan.

    How prepared is India?

    • There is not an easy answer to how worst things could go.
    • Mutation or sensitivity of virus: If we escape the worst, either because this virus mutates to a less virulent form or because there is something about its temperature or geographical sensitivity that we know nothing about, then we should count our blessings.
      • Viruses do mutate and generally to be less lethal.
    • Projection from Europe: If the projections from Europe are applicable in India, our ‘namastes’ and clean hands notwithstanding, the prevalence in India would be upwards of 20%.
    • In other words, we should expect to see about 200-300 million cases of COVID-19 infections and about four and eight million severe cases of the kind that are flooding hospitals in Italy and Spain at the moment.
    • More importantly, these cases are projected to appear in just a two to the four-month window.
      • In the current scenario, we are not ready.
    • India has somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 intensive care unit beds and probably a smaller number of ventilators.
      • That is simply inadequate.
    • What should be done? The next two weeks should be spent on planning for large, temporary hospitals that can accommodate such numbers. If we are lucky, we will not need them.

    Unprepared for pandemics

    • Catastrophic event with highest probability-Pandemic: This all sounds doomsday-like. But we have known for decades now that of all catastrophic events to befall humanity, between an asteroid hit and a nuclear war, a disease pandemic has always been the highest on our list of impact and probability.
    • Not enough changes in preparedness: There were some changes after the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) but not nearly enough.
      • Pandemic preparedness always took a backseat to the crisis of the moment.
      • And in fairness, there is truly no amount of preparation that can fully mitigate such an occurrence.

    Conclusion

    Things are about to get a lot worse. Let us hope that this brings out the best in us, and not the worst. Whether we know this or not, these events are just a dress rehearsal for the more challenging events such as climate change that are likely to be with us this century. And if we take care of each other, we will survive both these challenges with our humanity intact.

     

  • [pib] Friction-reducing Nanocomposite Coatings

    A group of scientists at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI) have developed a process for size-selective deposition of nanocomposite coatings which can reduce friction of these dynamic systems.

    What are Nanocomposites?

    • Nanocomposite coatings are formed by mixing two or more dissimilar materials at nanoscale to improve the physical, chemical and physicochemical properties of the new materials.
    • The scientists have found that nickel tungsten-based coatings with infusion of particular sized Silicon Carbide (SiC) submicron particles using a pulsed electroplating can provide an excellent combination of wear and corrosion resistance.

    Applications

    • Many aerospace, defence, automobile, space devices need to reduce friction, wear, and tear to enhance the life of components.
    • Lubricating these dynamic systems add to the cost, complexity, and weight of these systems.
    • The coating could help in reducing the friction of such devices.

  • [pib] Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) Advisories

    The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad has reported that Oceansat Satellite data from ISRO are used to prepare the PFZ advisories on the potential rich fishing areas and provide to the sea faring fishermen in all states.

    Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ)

    • This is the first advisory service started by INCOIS. The backbone of this service is the real-time data for ocean color and SST provided by the OCEANSAT and NOAA respectively.
    • This service was started because there was a need to identify the potential fishing zones to help the fishermen to get better catch while they were at the sea.
    • This service was started by the Ministry of Earth Sciences with the help of the Department of Space and several institutions under the Ministry of Agriculture.

    How it works?

    • This service makes use of parameters such as sea surface temperature and chlorophyll content provided by NOAA-AVHRR and Oceancolor satellites.
    • Features such as oceanic fronts, Meandering Patterns, Eddies, Rings, Up Welling areas etc. are identified sites for fish accumulation.
    • These features can easily be identified from Sea Surface Temperature and Chlorophyll data.
    • The availability of Chlorophyll from OCEANSAT and MOdDIS has further enriched these advisories in the recent years.
    • Hence, PFZ advisories have helped the fishing community to locate the fishing zones with accuracy.

    Special advisories for fisherman

    • Another feature of PFZ service is the generation of species-specific advisory to enable the fishermen folk to distinguish between the exploited and under-exploited species in the potential fishing zones.
    • This enables them to have sustainable fishery management by targeting only the under-exploited species in the fishing zones.
    • This approach enables them to avoid fishing the over-exploited species over and over again.

  • Epidemics that have hit India since 1900

    India has witnessed widespread illnesses and virus outbreaks in parts of the country, including the SARS outbreak between 2002 and 2004. However, statistics show that they were nowhere as widespread as the COVID-19 that has now reached almost every part of the country and almost every country in the world.

    What is an Epidemic?

    • The WHO defines epidemics as “the occurrence in a community or region of cases of an illness, specific health-related behaviour, or other health-related events clearly in excess of normal expectancy.
    • The community or region and the period in which the cases occur are specified precisely.
    • The number of cases indicating the presence of an epidemic varies according to the agent, size, and type of population exposed, previous experience or lack of exposure to the disease, and time and place of occurrence.
    • Epidemics are characterized by the rapid spread of the specific disease across a large number of people within a short period of time.

    Epidemics in India

    • Many Indian citizens born at the start of the 21st century have not fully witnessed or experienced circumstances surrounding the mass outbreak of epidemics.
    • This is not to say however, that as a nation, India is completely unfamiliar with dealing with epidemics and public health crises, some with exceptional success such as:

    1915-1926⁠ — Encephalitis lethargica

    • Encephalitis lethargica, also known as ‘lethargic encephalitis’ was a type of epidemic encephalitis that spread around the world between 1915 and 1926.
    • The disease was characterized by increasing languor, apathy, drowsiness and lethargy and by 1919, had spread across Europe, the US, Canada, Central America and India.
    • It was also called encephalitis A and Economo encephalitis or disease.
    • Approximately 1.5 million people are believed to have died due to this disease.

    1918-1920 — Spanish flu

    • This epidemic was a viral infectious disease caused due to a deadly strain of avian influenza.
    • The spread of this virus was largely due to World War I which caused mass mobilization of troops whose travels helped spread this infectious disease.
    • In India, approximately 10-20 million people died due to the Spanish flu that was brought to the region a century ago, by Indian soldiers who were part of the war.

    1961–1975 — Cholera pandemic

    • Vibrio cholerae, one type of bacterium, has caused seven cholera pandemics since 1817.
    • In 1961, the El Tor strain of the Vibrio cholerae bacterium caused the seventh cholera pandemic when it was identified as having emerged in Makassar, Indonesia.
    • In a span of less than five years, the virus spread to other parts of Southeast Asia and South Asia, having reached Bangladesh in 1963 and India in 1964.

    1974 — Smallpox epidemic

    • According to WHO, smallpox was officially eradicated in 1980. The infectious disease was caused by either of the two virus variants Variola major and Variola minor.
    • Although the origins of the disease are unknown, it appears to have existed in the 3rd century BCE.
    • This disease has a history of occurring in outbreaks around the world and it is not clear when it was first observed in India. India was free of smallpox by March 1977.

    1994 — Plague in Surat

    • In September 1994, pneumonic plague hit Surat, causing people to flee the city in large numbers. Rumours and misinformation led to people hoarding essential supplies and widespread panic.
    • This mass migration contributed to the spread of the disease to other parts of the country. Within weeks, reports emerged of at least 1,000 cases of patients afflicted with the disease and 50 deaths.

    2002-2004 — SARS

    • SARS was the first severe and readily transmissible new disease to have emerged in the 21st century.
    • In April 2003, India recorded its first case of SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, that was traced to Foshan, China.
    • Similar to COVID-19, the causative agent of SARS was a type of coronavirus, named SARS CoV that was known for its frequent mutations and spread through close person-to-person contact and through coughing and sneezing by infected people.

    2014-2015 — Swine flu outbreak

    • In the last few months of 2014, reports emerged of the outbreak of the H1N1 virus, one type of influenza virus, with states like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, Maharashtra and Telangana being the worst affected.
    • By March 2015, according to India’s Health Ministry, approximately 33,000 cases had been reported across the country and 2,000 people had died.

    2018 — Nipah virus outbreak

    • In May 2018, a viral infection attributed to fruit bats was traced in the state of Kerala, caused by the Nipah virus that had caused illness and deaths.
    • The spread of the outbreak remained largely within the state of Kerala, due to efforts by the local government and various community leaders who worked in collaboration to prevent its spread even inside the state.
    • Between May and June 2018, at least 17 people died of Nipah virus and by June, the outbreak was declared to have been completely contained.

  • What is Herd Immunity?

    As Europe was declared the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak last week, Britain announced a different strategy to tackle the situation. Officials said that Britain would contain the spread of the virus but would not suppress it completely to build up a degree of ‘herd immunity’.

    Herd Immunity

    • Herd immunity is when a large number of people are vaccinated against a disease, lowering the chances of others being infected by it.
    • When a sufficient percentage of a population is vaccinated, it slows the spread of disease.
    • It is also referred to as community immunity or herd protection.
    • The decline of disease incidence is greater than the proportion of individuals immunized because vaccination reduces the spread of an infectious agent by reducing the amount and/or duration of pathogen shedding by vaccines, retarding transmission.
    • The approach requires those exposed to the virus to build natural immunity and stop the human-to-human transmission. This will subsequently halt its spread.

    Can it work?

    • Globally, this strategy has been criticized.
    • COVID-19 is a new virus to which no one has immunity. More people are susceptible to infection.
    • The goal seems to have been delaying urgent action to allow an epidemic to infect large numbers of people.
    • To combat COVID-19, there is an urgent need to implement social distancing and closure policies.

  • Role of Glucose in Regulating Liver Functions

    A study by researchers from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai (TIFR) has revealed that glucose in the body controls the function of SIRT1 enzymes directly.

    What is SIRT1?

    • SIRT1 is an enzyme that deacetylates (removal of acetyl) proteins which contribute to cellular regulation.
    • A shortage or absence of the control by glucose may lead to a diabetic-like state, while excess feeding and sustained low levels of SIRT1 can lead to obesity and enhanced ageing.
    • This information is expected to tackle lifestyle disorders and ageing-related diseases.

    How do they function?

    • In normal healthy individuals, SIRT1 protein levels are known to increase during fasting and decrease during the feed, which is essential to maintain a balance between glucose and fat metabolism.
    • The glucose controls the functions of a protein SIRT1 which in turn maintains everyday feed-fast cycles and is also associated with longevity.
    • The feed-fast cycle is a basic pattern and the metabolism-related to this is largely taken care of by the liver.
    • Thus, the study shows that both over-activation and under-activation of SIRT1 can lead to diseases.
    • Glucose puts a check on the activity of SIRT1 in the fed state. In the absence of this check, SIRT1 activity increases and results in hyperglycemia in a fasted state, mimicking diabetic state.
    • The constant feeding or high-calorie intake that leads to a sustained reduction in the levels of SIRT1 by glucose which is associated with ageing and obesity.

  • Social Distancing and Flattening the Curve

    The last two days, a number of states in India have enforced measures aimed at reducing public gatherings. This is called “social distancing”.

    How does social distancing work?

    • To stem the speed of the coronavirus spread so that healthcare systems can handle the influx, experts are advising people to avoid mass gatherings.
    • Offices, schools, concerts, conferences, sports events, weddings, and the like have been shut or cancelled around the world, including in a number of Indian states.
    • An advisory by the US Centers for Disease Control recommends social distancing measures such as: reducing the frequency of large gatherings and limiting the number of attendees; limiting inter-school interactions; and considering distance or e-learning in some settings.

    What is the objective of such restrictions?

    • Compared to deadlier diseases such as bird flu, or H5N1, coronavirus is not as fatal —which ironically also makes it more difficult to contain.
    • With milder symptoms, the infected are more likely to be active and still spreading the virus.
    • For example, more than half the cases aboard a cruise ship that has docked in California did not exhibit any symptoms.
    • In a briefing on March 11, WHO officials said, “Action must be taken to prevent transmission at the community level to reduce the epidemic to manageable clusters.”
    • The main question for governments is to reduce the impact of the virus by flattening the trajectory of cases from a sharp bell curve to an elongated speed-bump-like curve.
    • This is being called “flattening the curve”. How does ‘flattening the curve’ help?
    • Limiting community transmission is the best way to flatten the curve.

    What was the curve like in China?

    • The numbers show that the virus spread within Hubei exponentially but plateaued in other provinces.
    • Some say it’s because many of these countries learnt from the 2003 SARS epidemic.
    • Just as Chinese provinces outside of Hubei effectively stemmed the spread in February, three other countries —South Korea, Italy, and Iran — were not able to flatten the curve.

    Flattening The Curve

    • In epidemiology, the idea of slowing a virus’ spread so that fewer people need to seek treatment at any given time is known as “flattening the curve.”
    • It explains why so many countries are implementing “social distancing” guidelines — including a “lockdown” order that affects 1.3 billion people in India, even though COVID-19 outbreaks in various places might not yet seem severe.

    What is the curve?

    • The “curve” researchers are talking about refers to the projected number of people who will contract COVID-19 over a period of time.
    • To be clear, this is not a hard prediction of how many people will definitely be infected, but a theoretical number that’s used to model the virus’ spread. Here’s what one looks like:

    • The curve takes on different shapes, depending on the virus’s infection rate.
    • It could be a steep curve, in which the virus spreads exponentially (that is, case counts keep doubling at a consistent rate), and the total number of cases skyrockets to its peak within a few weeks.
    • Infection curves with a steep rise also have a steep fall; after the virus infects pretty much everyone who can be infected, case numbers begin to drop exponentially, too.
    • The faster the infection curve rises, the quicker the local health care system gets overloaded beyond its capacity to treat people.
    • As we’re seeing in Maharashtra or Ahmedabad, more and more new patients may be forced to go without ICU beds, and more and more hospitals may run out of the basic supplies they need to respond to the outbreak.
    • A flatter curve, on the other hand, assumes the same number of people ultimately get infected, but over a longer period of time.
    • A slower infection rate means a less stressed health care system, fewer hospital visits on any given day and fewer sick people being turned away.

  • What is a Pandemic and various other terms?

    What is the news: The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.

    What is a pandemic?

    • Simply put, a pandemic is a measure of the spread of a disease.
    • When a new disease spreads over a vast geographical area covering several countries and continents, and most people do not have immunity against it, the outbreak is termed a pandemic.
    • It implies a higher level of concern than an epidemic, which the US Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) define as the spread of a disease in a localised area or country.
    • There is no fixed number of cases or deaths that determine when an outbreak becomes a pandemic.
    • The Ebola virus, which killed thousands in West Africa, is an epidemic as it is yet to mark its presence on other continents.
    • Other outbreaks caused by coronaviruses such as MERS (2012) and SARS (2002), which spread to 27 and 26 countries respectively, were not labelled pandemics because they were eventually contained.

    Which outbreaks have been declared pandemics in the past?

    • A major example is the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, which killed between 20-50 million.
    • Cholera pandemics have been declared multiple times between 1817 and 1975.
    • In 1968, a pandemic was declared for H3N2 that caused about a million deaths.
    • The last pandemic declared by the WHO was in 2009, for H1N1.

    Does the declaration change the approach to the disease?

    • Describing the situation as pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the risk posed by the virus. However, the categorization as a pandemic can lead to more government attention.
    • The categorization by WHO indicates the risk of disease for countries to take preventive measures.
    • It will help improve funding by international organisations to combat coronavirus.

    Difference Between Endemic, Epidemic, Outbreak and Pandemic:

    • AN EPIDEMIC is a disease that affects a large number of people within a community, population, or region.
    • A PANDEMIC is an epidemic that’s spread over multiple countries or continents.
    • ENDEMIC is something that belongs to a particular people or country.
    • AN OUTBREAK is a greater-than-anticipated increase in the number of endemic cases. It can also be a single case in a new area. If it’s not quickly controlled, an outbreak can become an epidemic.

    Epidemic vs. Pandemic

    • A simple way to know the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic is to remember the “P” in the pandemic, which means a pandemic has a passport. A pandemic is an epidemic that travels.

    Epidemic vs. Endemic

    • An epidemic is actively spreading; new cases of the disease substantially exceed what is expected.
    • More broadly, it’s used to describe any problem that’s out of control, such as “the opioid epidemic.”
    • An epidemic is often localized to a region, but the number of those infected in that region is significantly higher than normal.
    • For example, when COVID-19 was limited to Wuhan, China, it was an epidemic. The geographical spread turned it into a pandemic.
    • Endemics, on the other hand, are a constant presence in a specific location.
    • Malaria is endemic to parts of Africa. Ice is endemic to Antarctica.

    Endemic vs. Outbreak

    • Going one step farther, an endemic can lead to an outbreak, and an outbreak can happen anywhere.
    • Last summer’s dengue fever outbreak in Hawaii is as an example. Dengue fever is endemic to certain regions of Africa, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Mosquitoes in these areas carry dengue fever and transmit it from person to person.
    • But in 2019 there was an outbreak of dengue fever in Hawaii, where the disease is not endemic. It’s believed an infected person visited the Big Island and was bitten by mosquitoes there.
    • The insects then transferred the disease to other individuals they bit, which created an outbreak.

    You can see why it’s so easy to confuse these terms. They’re all related to one another and there’s a natural ebb and flow between them as treatments become available and measures for control are put in place — or as flare-ups occur and disease begins to spread.