By which year has "National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission" fixed the target to eliminate sickle cell anaemia from India ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, 2047. The National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission, announced in the Union Budget 2023-24 and launched by the Prime Minister at Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh on 1 July 2023, fixes 2047 — India's hundredth year of independence — as the year by which sickle cell anaemia is to be eliminated as a public health problem. Its headline operational target is universal screening of 7 crore people aged 0-40 years in tribal-majority areas across 278 districts of 17 high-focus states, supported by awareness, counselling (including pre-marital genetic counselling) and treatment.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Not a target year in this mission or in any allied programme. India's nearer-term disease goals use other years — tuberculosis elimination, for instance, is set at 2025 — and none of them is 2032.  (b) A decade short of the actual deadline and not a milestone in any Government of India health document on sickle cell disease.  (c) The closest of the wrong options, but still not the number. The mission's horizon is deliberately pegged to the 2047 independence centenary, not to a round figure near it.

Concept: Sickle cell disease is an inherited, autosomal recessive haemoglobin disorder. A single point mutation in the beta-globin gene produces haemoglobin S, which polymerises when oxygen levels fall and deforms red blood cells into a rigid sickle shape. Those cells break down early, causing chronic anaemia, and jam small blood vessels, causing painful vaso-occlusive crises and cumulative organ damage. In India the disease is concentrated among tribal populations of central, western and eastern India — which is why the mission is run jointly by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, through the National Health Mission, and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs.

State PCS 2025 Q95 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q95 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer