Seoul moves to normalise military pact with Tokyo (GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Why in news?
- South Korea will fully implement a key military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan, as the two countries move to renew diplomacy to counter North Korea.
- Confronted with North Korea’s growing aggression and flurry of missile tests, the neighbours have increasingly sought to bury the hatchet.
Fence-mending summit:
- South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has been keen to end the spat and present a united front against the nuclear-armed North, had flown to Japan to meet Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the first such summit in 12 years.
- At a fence-mending summit, they agreed to turn the page on a bitter dispute over Japan’s use of war-time forced labour.
GSOMIA:
- South Korea wanted a “complete normalisation” of a 2016 military agreement called the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), which enables the two U.S. allies to share military secrets, particularly over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile capacity.
- It had threatened to scrap GSOMIA in 2019 as relations with Japan soured over trade disputes and a historical row stemming from Japan’s 35-year colonial rule over the peninsula. In response, an alarmed U.S. said that calling off the pact would only benefit North Korea and China.
- Hours before it was set to expire, South Korea agreed to extend GSOMIA “conditionally”, but warned it could be “terminated” at any moment.
What's the background?
- The two countries share a complicated history. They have fought on and off since at least the 7th Century, and Japan has repeatedly tried to invade the peninsula since then.
- In 1910, it annexed Korea, turning the territory into a colony. Resentment over this period, when many South Korean workers were forced to work for Japanese firms, continues today.
- The issue was recently brought to the fore by a 2018 South Korean supreme court ruling that ordered Japanese firms to compensate Koreans it used as forced labour.
- The decisions drew condemnation from Japan, which argues the dispute was settled in 1965 when diplomatic ties were normalised between the neighbouring countries.
- The row has since escalated and has impacted their modern trade relationship, threatening industries such as technology.
About GSOMIA:
- The intelligence pact, known as GSOMIA (General Security of Military Information Agreement), allowed the two countries to share information about North Korea's military and nuclear activities directly with each other.
- Without it, information would have had to go through their joint-allies in Washington, slowing the process down.
At a high dose, sucralose impairs mouse immune responses
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Why in news?
- A recent study, provides evidence that high doses of sucralose, a calorie-free sugar substitute that is 600 times sweeter than sucrose and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use as a general-purpose sweetener, can limit immune responses in mice.
Concerns:
- Sucralose is generally regarded as safe, the reason why the FDA has approved it. However, of late, concerns have been raised about the long-term safety of certain sweeteners.
- In line with these concerns, the latest study has shown that intake of high doses of sucralose in mice results in “immunomodulatory effects by limiting Tcell proliferation and Tcell differentiation”.
- The researchers have now shown that sucralose affects the membrane order of Tcells, accompanied by a reduced efficiency of Tcell receptor signalling and intracellular calcium mobilisation.
Key Highlights of the research:
- When mice with subcutaneous cancer and bacterial infection were given a dose of sucralose, which is higher than what humans consume daily, it resulted in impaired T cell responses; mice in the control group did not show any reduction in T cell responses.
- Also, when the researchers stopped feeding the mice in the intervention group with sucralose, the T cell responses began to recover, thus clearly indicating the link between sucralose and impaired T cell responses.
Conclusion:
- The findings do not provide evidence that normal sucralose intake is immunosuppressive, but they do demonstrate that at high (but achievable) doses, sucralose has an unexpected effect on Tcell responses and functions in autoimmune, infection as well as tumour models.
- However, the study cannot exclude the possibility that sucralose may affect Tcells through “additional mechanisms, such as epigenetic changes in response to long-term sucralose exposure or an ability to modulate taste receptors that are not shared with other sweeteners”.
Tamil Nadu’s novel initiative results in reduced TB deaths
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Why in news?
- Tamil Nadu has pioneered an initiative across the State to reduce the mortality rate among people with tuberculosis.
- The initiative, TN-KET (Tamil Nadu Kasanoi Erappila Thittam, meaning TB death-free project) which began in April 2022 in 2,500-odd public healthcare facilities that diagnosed TB in 30 districts, has already achieved significant reduction in the number of early TB deaths.
Differentiated TB Care:
- The heart of the initiative is the ‘Differentiated TB Care’ aimed at assessing whether people with TB need ambulatory care or admission in a health facility to manage severe illness at the time of diagnosis.
- The differentiated TB care guidelines, released by the Central TB Division in January 2021, requires comprehensive assessment of 16 clinical, laboratory and radiological parameters.
- But the challenge is that undertaking the comprehensive assessment would take time, and most PHCs, many taluk and block-level healthcare facilities lack clinical and diagnostic capacity to carry out these assessments.
Preliminary assessment:
- In lieu of the 16 parameters, Chennai-based National Institute of Epidemiology (ICMR-NIE), which is spearheading TN-KET along with the State TB Cell, found that preliminary assessment (triaging) of patients based on just three conditions; very severe undernutrition, respiratory insufficiency, and inability to stand without support was feasible for quick identification at diagnosis and referral for admission in a healthcare facility for comprehensive assessment and further management of the disease.
Comprehensive assessment:
- The comprehensive assessment is mainly for identifying the medical conditions that require immediate treatment.
- Using only three conditions meant that people with severe TB illness needing immediate care were identified and admitted to a healthcare facility on the same day of diagnosis even under programmatic conditions, thus vastly cutting down the delay and increasing the chances of saving lives.
- The State has identified around 150 nodal inpatient care facilities with nearly 900 beds earmarked for people with TB who are severely ill.
Target achieved & Way Forward:
- The TN-KET initiative has already achieved the initial target of 80% triaging of patients, 80% referral, comprehensive assessment and confirmation of severe illness, and 80% admission among confirmed.
- In December 2022, it reached the 90%-90%-90% goal at State level and now target is to achieve the same in each district.
- Another challenge is to increase the duration of admission. For instance, people with very severe undernutrition, which comprises 50% of the admitted patients, the duration of treatment has to be long.
- At the State level, the average admission duration was five days between April and December last year, which improved to six days in December.
- With the support of district TB officers and physicians in the nodal inpatient care facilities, the next goal is to increase the average admission duration to more than seven days.
