Health Technology & Diseases

GS Paper: GS Paper III | Subject: Science & Technology | Last updated: 2026-07-22

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Prelims

(Key facts, data, schemes, laws, organizations — MCQ-ready points)

KRAS-Targeting Pill for Pancreatic Cancer (Indian Express, 04-06-2026)

• New once-daily oral pill (a KRAS inhibitor) nearly doubled survival time in advanced pancreatic cancer in a large international trial (results presented at the ASCO — American Society of Clinical Oncology — meeting)
• Target — KRAS gene: a cancer-driving mutation present in ~90% of pancreatic tumours; long considered "undruggable"
• Why pancreatic cancer matters: one of the deadliest cancers — 5-year survival only ~13%; ~7% of all cancer deaths
• Median survival for advanced disease barely improved in decades — ~6 months (late 1990s) → ~9–12 months today; this pill is a step-change

WHO — Ebola Outbreak in DR Congo (Indian Express, 04-06-2026)

• WHO says confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Ebola outbreak rose to 344
• WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: the outbreak "had a big head start" — flagged weak early response / governance gaps
• Ebola = viral haemorrhagic fever; recurrent in Central/West Africa

Dengue Vaccine — DengiAll & the ADE Risk (The Hindu, 15-06-2026)

• 2 deaths in Brazil during its Butantan-DV dengue-vaccine campaign → suspended on 8 June; India's upcoming DengiAll (Panacea Biotec + ICMR) is "similar, if not identical"
• Both are live-attenuated & tetravalent — a physical mix of all 4 dengue serotypes (DENV-1/-2/-3/-4), which differ in their envelope (E) proteins
• Key risk = Antibody-Dependent Enhancement (ADE): when cross-reactive antibody levels fall, they enhance rather than block a new infection → severe/fatal dengue (a serious adverse event)
• Precedent: Dengvaxia (Sanofi) caused severe events in the Philippines (8 lakh children) and behaved monovalently (immunity only to DENV-4) — mixing 4 live viruses doesn't guarantee balanced immunity; tech traces to US NIH (TV003/TV005); Qdenga (Takeda) India approval imminent
• DengiAll Phase-3 (with ICMR) enrolled 10,335 volunteers (followed 2 yrs)

Nipah Virus — Kerala (Kozhikode) (The Hindu, 15-06-2026)

• A fresh Nipah infection reported in Kozhikode; the LoP flagged coordination gaps in containment
• Nipah = zoonotic (fruit-bat reservoir), high case-fatality, recurrent in Kerala — a One Health concern

Nipah — One Health Lessons & Kerala's "Outbreak Calendar" (The Hindu, 17-06-2026)

• WHO classifies Nipah a "priority pathogen" (high lethality + outbreak/pandemic potential); it has also flagged avian influenza and Kyasanur Forest Disease for Kerala. The current case: a 43-year-old from Ramanattukara, Kozhikode, on ventilator; no fresh cases after intensive contact-tracing & screening — a sign of Kerala's robust health system
• History: the 2018 Kerala outbreak caused 17 deaths / 23 affected (index patient infected 15 others, incl. health workers); recurrences in 2019, 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025; a devastating 2001 outbreak in West Bengal (+2007); Jan 2026 — 2 lab-confirmed cases in WB (health workers), contained
• One Health framing: human encroachment into fruit-bat habitats + consuming bat-contaminated fruit/water drives spill-over → response must weigh environmental + animal + human factors, not health care alone
• Kerala "outbreak calendar": the State will map seasonal & regional disease patterns (e.g. Nipah recurs in Perambra, Kozhikode, May–Sept) to give the public-health system predictive capacity for prevention & response

16 Fixed-Dose Combination (FDC) Drugs Banned (The Hindu, 21-06-2026)

• The Union Health Ministry banned 16 FDC medications "in public interest", holding they lack therapeutic justification and could harm patients — covering certain dermatological, analgesic/antispasmodic and antibiotic-based formulations
• FDC = a single dosage form combining two or more active drugs in a fixed ratio; rational FDCs aid compliance/efficacy, but irrational combinations can be ineffective or unsafe
• Banned examples: aspirin (acetyl salicylic acid) + ethoheptazine; dicyclomine + paracetamol + clidinium bromide (± chlordiazepoxide); gliclazide + chromium picolinate; paracetamol + lignocaine; several antibiotic combos (e.g. amoxicillin + serratiopeptidase; amoxicillin + cloxacillin) — irrational antibiotic FDCs feed antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
• Continues the regulator's recent drive against unsafe formulations (cf. the cough-syrup OTC curbs); FDCs are regulated under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act/Rules

QR-Code Track-and-Trace Expanded (Drugs Rules, 1945) (The Hindu, 26-06-2026)

• The Health Ministry amended the Drugs Rules, 1945 to expand Schedule H2 under the QR-code-based track-and-trace framework: now covers all vaccines, all antimicrobials, narcotic & psychotropic drugs (under the NDPS Act, 1985), and all anti-cancer drugs
• Manufacturers must print/affix a barcode or QR code on the primary packaging (or secondary, if space is short) storing the unique product ID, generic & brand names, manufacturer details, batch number, mfg/expiry dates and licence number — verifiable across the supply chain to curb spurious/counterfeit medicines
• Builds on the earlier mandate for the top-300 brands and complements the recent cough-syrup OTC curbs / FDC bans — part of a wider drive on drug quality (esp. after adulterated-syrup child deaths); regulated under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940

Air Suvidha 2.0 — Ebola Screening at Airports (The Hindu, 26-06-2026)

• The Ministry of Civil Aviation + Delhi International Airport (DIAL) launched Air Suvidha 2.0, an upgraded contactless passenger health self-declaration portal, for public-health surveillance against the ongoing Ebola outbreak — passengers submit a 21-day travel & exposure history + symptoms before immigration (fillable 24 hrs in advance)
• The WHO declared the Ebola outbreak in the DR Congo & Uganda a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 17 May 2026; the portal (revived from its COVID-era avatar) operationalises point-of-entry screening under the International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005)

QDENGA (TAK-003) Approved — India's FIRST Dengue Vaccine (The Hindu, 21-07-2026; DCGI approval 20-07-2026)

• The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) granted market authorisation to Takeda Biopharmaceuticals India's QDENGA (TAK-003) on 20 July 2026 — the first dengue vaccine ever approved in India, for persons aged 4 to 60 years
• This closes the loop on the 15-06-2026 entry above, which recorded that "Qdenga (Takeda) India approval [was] imminent" while India's own DengiAll (Panacea Biotec + ICMR) was still in trials
• The product: a live-attenuated, tetravalent vaccine designed to protect against all four dengue serotypes (DENV-1 to -4); two-dose regimen with doses three months apart
• The critical design claim — read against the ADE problem: QDENGA can be administered irrespective of whether the individual has had a previous dengue infection, and does not require pre-vaccination screening. This is the direct contrast with Dengvaxia (Sanofi), which caused severe events in seronegative children in the Philippines and forced a serostatus-screening requirement. (The Antibody-Dependent Enhancement risk described in the June entry is exactly what this claim is answering — treat the claim as the manufacturer's position validated by the regulator, and watch post-marketing surveillance, not as a closed question.)
• Efficacy (from the pivotal TIDES Phase III trial): 80.2% against virologically confirmed dengue at 12 months after the second dose, and 90.4% against dengue-related hospitalisation at 18 months
• Evidence base: Takeda's global clinical development programme of 19 Phase I, II and III trials involving over 28,000 participants across dengue-endemic and non-endemic regions; the pivotal Phase III trial enrolled more than 20,000 participants across eight dengue-endemic countries. The India approval rests on a Phase III trial conducted among participants aged 4 to 60
• India's burden — the numbers that justify the approval: India accounts for nearly one-third of the global dengue burden; reported cases rose nearly 11-fold over the past two decades; reported cases exceeded 233,000 in 2024, but modelling studies suggest actual infections are substantially higher — likely tens of millions a year. (The reported/actual gap is itself an examinable point about passive surveillance underestimating vector-borne disease.)
• Global footprint: approved in 43 countries across Asia, Latin America and Europe

CLARIFICATION — two different metrics, do not conflate. The Hindu reports "more than 32 million doses distributed" through public and private immunisation programmes, while Takeda's own release of the same date states "more than 24 million doses administered across 42 countries". These are not contradictory — distributed (shipped to programmes) always exceeds administered (actually injected), and country counts move as approvals accrue. Use "over 30 million doses distributed / over 24 million administered" and specify which metric you mean.

Congo's Ebola Outbreak — 930 Dead, and a Strain With No Approved Vaccine (The Hindu, 21-07-2026)

• At least 930 people, including 36 health workers, have died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Ebola outbreak, per the country's Ministry of Health; 37 new deaths were recorded between Friday and Saturday alone, one of the highest two-day totals of the outbreak
• The critical scientific point: the outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, for which there is no approved vaccine
• Why that matters — the distinction to know: Ebolavirus is a genus with several distinct species. The licensed vaccines — ERVEBO (rVSV-ZEBOV) and the Zabdeno/Mvabea two-dose regimen — protect against Zaire ebolavirus only. They are not established as protective against Bundibugyo or Sudan ebolavirus, because the immune response is directed at the species-specific surface glycoprotein. An outbreak of a non-Zaire species therefore strips away the main pharmaceutical tool and forces reliance on classical outbreak control: case isolation, contact tracing, safe and dignified burials, infection prevention in health facilities, and community engagement
• The health-worker toll (36 deaths) is itself an indicator — high healthcare-worker mortality signals inadequate PPE and infection-prevention capacity, and it compounds the outbreak by removing the very people needed to contain it
• Use it for: One Health, zoonotic spillover and emerging infectious disease, the species-specificity of vaccines (a precise point most answers miss), health-systems fragility in conflict-affected states, and IHR (2005) obligations / WHO PHEIC determination

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Mains

(Analysis, dimensions, significance, critique, policy angles — for 10/15 mark answers)

Drug-Quality Governance & Counterfeit Medicines (The Hindu, 26-06-2026)

• Why track-and-trace matters: spurious/sub-standard medicines (recall the adulterated-cough-syrup deaths) endanger lives and India's reputation as "pharmacy of the world"; extending QR-based serialisation to high-risk categories (vaccines, antibiotics, narcotics, anti-cancer) lets regulators and patients authenticate drugs across the supply chain — and antibiotic authenticity also matters for AMR control
• Implementation challenge: coverage is incremental (top brands → these categories), and the gain depends on end-to-end verification, MSME-manufacturer compliance cost, and scanning at pharmacy/patient level — a regulatory-capacity question (CDSCO/State drug controllers)
• Border health security (Air Suvidha 2.0): point-of-entry screening shows IHR-based preparedness, but the lesson of past outbreaks is that airport screening is a porous first line — it must sit atop surveillance (IDSP/IHIP), One Health, and health-system readiness rather than substitute for them
• UPSC angle: drug regulation (CDSCO, Drugs & Cosmetics Act), counterfeit medicines & "pharmacy of the world", AMR, IHR 2005 & point-of-entry screening, epidemic preparedness (Ebola/PHEIC)

Targeted Therapy & the "Undruggable" Frontier (Indian Express, 04-06-2026)

• Precision oncology: Cracking KRAS shows the shift from broad chemotherapy to mutation-targeted drugs — converts a near-untreatable cancer into a manageable one, a template for other "undruggable" targets
• Access & affordability question for India: Such targeted oral drugs are typically very expensive and patent-protected → equity concern for a country with high cancer burden; strengthens case for patent flexibilities (compulsory licensing), generics, and public cancer-care financing
• Epidemic-preparedness link (Ebola): "Head start" of the DRC outbreak underlines that early detection + surveillance + health-system trust decide epidemic outcomes — relevant to India's IDSP and One Health framework
• UPSC angle: Gene-targeted therapy, precision medicine, drug affordability & IPR, non-communicable disease burden, global epidemic governance (WHO, IHR)

Vaccine Safety & Pharmacovigilance — the DengiAll Caution (The Hindu, 15-06-2026)

• A vaccine that can worsen disease: dengue is unusual — ADE means an imperfect/ waning immune response can make the next infection deadlier, and "tetravalent" on paper may not mean balanced protection in practice (Dengvaxia lesson). Before rollout India must mandate type-specific antibody testing across all 4 serotypes and long-duration pharmacovigilance with periodic blood monitoring
• Risk communication: Brazil's 0.008% severe-event rate is tiny at population scale, but each death corrodes trust → transparent, real-time safety surveillance is essential for uptake (post-Covid vaccine-hesitancy context)
• UPSC angle: vaccine platforms (live-attenuated), ADE, clinical-trial phases, drug regulator (CDSCO), pharmacovigilance, One Health (Nipah), vaccine hesitancy & risk communication