Health, disease & one-health in current affairs

Where this sits in the UPSC scheme

Health and disease occupy a permanent place in GS Paper III ('Science and Technology — developments and applications and effects in everyday life') and GS Paper II (governance, health as a development sector, international institutions). In Prelims, the topic surfaces as factual questions on pathogens, vaccine platforms, government programmes and global health bodies. The COVID-19 pandemic made this a guaranteed theme: UPSC has repeatedly tested mRNA technology, gene sequencing, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the institutional architecture of disease surveillance.

How it is tested

Prelims (factual recall): Expect statement-matching on diseases and vectors (e.g. Nipah — fruit bats; Kyasanur Forest Disease — ticks; Zika — Aedes aegypti), on vaccine platforms (mRNA, viral-vector, subunit, inactivated), and on bodies such as ICMR, NCDC, GAVI and the WHO. A 2021 Prelims question probed monoclonal antibodies; questions on gene-editing and CRISPR recur.

Mains (analytical): GS-3 questions ask you to evaluate India's pandemic preparedness, analyse the One Health framework, or discuss antimicrobial resistance as a security threat. The 2020 paper asked about COVID-19's impact; examiners reward candidates who connect a scientific mechanism to a governance prescription.

The high-yield spine to retain

1. One Health — the WHO/FAO/WOAH/UNEP Quadripartite definition (2021): an integrated approach recognising that human, animal, plant and environmental health are interdependent. Roughly 75% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic.
2. India's institutions — the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR, 1911), the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) running the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP, 2004), and the National One Health Mission approved by the Cabinet in 2023.
3. Legal backbone — the colonial Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 (invoked nationwide in March 2020), the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (the actual legal vehicle for the 2020 lockdown), and the proposed Public Health (Prevention, Control and Management of Epidemics) Bill intended to replace the 1897 Act.
4. Global governance — the International Health Regulations (2005), amended in 2024, and the WHO Pandemic Agreement adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2025.

Memorise three dated instances you can deploy as evidence: the 2018 and 2023 Nipah outbreaks in Kerala, the COVID-19 declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, and the mpox PHEIC of 14 August 2024. These let you anchor abstract arguments in concrete, datable fact — exactly what raises a Mains answer from average to distinction.

The One Health logic

One Health reframes disease control around the interface where humans, animals and ecosystems meet. The pathogens that defined the last decade emerged precisely there: SARS-CoV-2 (bat-origin coronavirus), Nipah (fruit bats, Pteropus), avian influenza H5N1 (waterfowl and poultry), and mpox (a zoonotic orthopoxvirus). Deforestation, intensive livestock farming, wildlife trade and climate-driven vector range-shifts compress the human-animal interface and accelerate spillover. The Quadripartite — WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) and UN Environment Programme — formalised the joint definition in December 2021 and launched the One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022–2026).

India institutionalised this through the National One Health Mission, cleared by the Union Cabinet in 2023, coordinating the health, animal husbandry and environment ministries; a National Institute of One Health is being established at Nagpur. The Standing Committee on Zoonoses under ICMR-NIV Pune underpins this scientifically.

Surveillance architecture

Disease intelligence in India runs on three layers. The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP, 2004) collects weekly outbreak data; the newer Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) digitised this into near-real-time, case-based reporting. Genomic surveillance runs through INSACOG (Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium, established December 2020), a network of laboratories that tracked Delta and Omicron variants. The NCDC operates a National One Health Programme for Prevention and Control of Zoonotic Diseases.

Antimicrobial resistance: the slow pandemic

AMR is the One Health threat examiners most reliably reward. The 2022 Lancet GRAM study estimated 1.27 million deaths directly attributable to bacterial AMR in 2019, with South Asia among the worst-hit. India's response includes the National Action Plan on AMR (2017), the Red Line campaign on antibiotic packaging, and Schedule H1 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules restricting over-the-counter sale of key antibiotics. The UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AMR in September 2024 set a target to reduce AMR-associated deaths by 10% by 2030. Drivers cut across sectors: human over-prescription, antibiotic use as livestock growth promoters, and pharmaceutical effluent — which is why AMR is the textbook case for One Health coordination.

Vaccine and platform literacy

Know the platforms: inactivated (Covaxin, Bharat Biotech), viral-vector (Covishield/AstraZeneca; Sputnik V), mRNA (Pfizer, Moderna — the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine to Karikó and Weissman), protein-subunit (Corbevax), and India's ZyCoV-D, the world's first approved DNA plasmid vaccine (2021). Retain CoWIN as the digital delivery backbone and India's role as a vaccine manufacturer through the Serum Institute and the GAVI-Vaccine Alliance.