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Communicable diseases, animal health and One Health

Infectious diseases in people and animals: outbreaks, surveillance, India's disease programmes, and the One Health approach that joins human, animal and environmental health. Prelims has asked which disease the H1N1 virus is linked to and whether viruses spread only through vectors.

Foundation note: The diseases Prelims asks: pathogen, vector, programme

Showing 3 of 8 articles, those that changed from 1 to 31 July 2026.Show all

Outbreaks in people

Chandipura virus

Prelims and Mains

Chandipura virus is a rhabdovirus related to rabies, carried mainly by sandflies.

It causes fever that can turn into acute encephalitis, inflammation of the brain, in children, killing within days.
Outbreaks recur in summer in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.
Testing animals beside people in an outbreak is One Health in practice.

What changed

26 Jul 2026BriefRajasthan stepped up surveillance after two girls from Dungarpur and Sirohi who died tested positive. The Hindu, 26 Jul 2026: Rajasthan on alert after deaths linked to Chandipura virus (opens in a new tab)

Animals and One Health

Zoonoses action plan

Prelims and Mains

The National Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Zoonoses is built on the One Health approach and names ten priority zoonoses.

The ten run from anthrax and brucellosis to Nipah, rabies and Zika.
Each State is to write its own plan on the same lines.

What changed

6 Jul 2026New
- A draft National Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Zoonoses, built on the One Health approach, has been prepared, and States will write their own plans on the same lines.
- The ten priority zoonoses are anthrax, brucellosis, Kyasanur Forest Disease, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, Nipah, mpox, rabies, leptospirosis, scrub typhus and Zika.
PIB, 6 Jul 2026: Government Launches Learning Resource Package and E-Learning Modules to Strengthen Zoonotic Disease Surveillance and Response (opens in a new tab)

Programmes and treaties

National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme

Prelims and Mains

The National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme, launched in 2018, aims to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030.

It works through free screening and treatment and the hepatitis B birth dose.

What changed

28 Jul 2026BriefThe hepatitis B birth dose has crossed 92 per cent coverage. PIB, 28 Jul 2026: IEC materials on viral hepatitis, modes of transmission and services available under NVHCP released at the event (opens in a new tab)

Lumpy skin disease: A viral disease of cattle and buffaloes that causes fever and hard nodules in the skin.

Ring vaccination: Vaccinating every susceptible animal in a ring around an outbreak, building a barrier of immunity that stops the disease spreading outward.

zoonosis: A disease that spreads from animals to humans.

Incidence: New cases in a population over a set period, which allows fair comparison between places of different size.

Biological disaster: A disaster caused by living organisms or their toxins: an epidemic, a pandemic, or a deliberate release of a pathogen.

National Disaster Management Plan: The country's plan under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, setting out who does what in prevention, mitigation, response and recovery.

BSL 3: A Biosafety Level 3 laboratory, built to handle dangerous airborne pathogens.

Shigellosis: A diarrhoeal disease caused by Shigella bacteria, marked by fever, cramps and bloody diarrhoea.

Eschar: A dark scab at the site of the mite's bite.

Chigger: The larval mite that spreads scrub typhus.

Also filed elsewhere

Dengue vaccines: Qdenga, DengiAll and antibody dependent enhancement · on Vaccines and immunisation
Dengue has four serotypes, and antibodies from a first infection can help a different serotype enter cells in a second, which is antibody dependent enhancement and is why dengue vaccines are hard to design: vaccination raises type specific antibodies, which block one serotype, and cross reactive antibodies, which block all four only at high levels and can enhance a new infection into severe dengue once they wane.