Monkeypox task force set up as first death in India confirmed

• The team will be headed by V.K. Paul, member (Health), NITI Aayog. India has reported six confirmed cases of monkeypox so far — four in Kerala and two in Delhi.
• According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 18,000 cases have been reported from 78 countries.
• Monkeypox is a zoonotic disease caused by the monkeypox virus, which belongs to the same family of viruses that causes smallpox.
• The disease is endemic in regions like West and Central Africa, but lately, cases have been reported from non-endemic countries too, according to WHO.

The Rajya Sabha passed the Indian Antarctic Bill.

• The Indian Antarctic Bill, 2022 seeks to allow the application of Indian laws to the country’s research stations in Antarctica.
• It also aims to provide national measures to protect the Antarctic environment and associated ecosystems.
• The Bill will also give effect to the Antarctic Treaty, the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources and the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.

The Rajya Sabha passed the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Amendment Bill.

• The first Bill will amend the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act, 2005.
• The amendment seeks to prevent financing of prohibited activities related to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
• The Bill also proposes to empower the Central government to freeze, seize or attach funds or financial assets or economic resources for preventing financing of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and to prohibit making available funds or resources for such activities.

Bill for Gati Shakti University introduced in Lok Sabha

• The Bill seeks to expand the scope of the university from beyond just the Railways to cover the entire transport sector and support growth and modernisation in the field.
• The new university, once the Bill clears both Houses of Parliament, will be funded and administered by the Ministry of Railways.
• The Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2022 seeks to amend the Central Universities Act, 2009, inter alia, to provide for the establishment of Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya as a body corporate under the said Act.
• The establishment of the Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya would address the need for talent in the strategically important and expanding transportation sector and meet the demand for trained talent to fuel the growth and expansion of the sector.

AlphaFold reveals the structure of the protein universe

• AlphaFold is an AI-based protein structure prediction tool. It used processes based on “training, learning, retraining and relearning” to predict the structures of the entire 214 million unique protein sequences deposited in the Universal Protein Resource (UniProt) database.
• The Indian community of structural biology needs to take advantage of the AlphaFold database and learn how to use the structures to design better vaccines and drugs.

African Swine Fever: Culling of pigs underway in Kerala''s Kannur

• African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a large, double-stranded DNA virus in the Asfarviridae family.
• It is the causative agent of African swine fever (ASF).
• The virus causes a hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rates in domestic pigs; some isolates can cause death of animals as quickly as a week after infection.
• It persistently infects its natural hosts, warthogs, bushpigs, and soft ticks of the genus Ornithodoros, which likely act as a vector, with no disease signs.
• It does not cause disease in humans. ASFV is endemic to sub-Saharan Africa and exists in the wild through a cycle of infection between ticks and wild pigs, bushpigs, and warthogs.
• The disease was first described after European settlers brought pigs into areas endemic with ASFV, and as such, is an example of an emerging infectious disease.
• ASFV replicates in the cytoplasm of infected cells.
• It is the only virus with a double-stranded DNA genome known to be transmitted by arthropods.

Nearly 1200 cattle perish to lumpy skin disease in Rajasthan

• Lumpy skin disease (LSD) is an infectious disease in cattle caused by a virus of the family Poxviridae, also known as Neethling virus.
• The disease is characterized by fever, enlarged superficial lymph nodes and multiple nodules (measuring 2–5 centimetres (1–2 in) in diameter) on the skin and mucous membranes (including those of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts).
• Infected cattle also may develop edematous swelling in their limbs and exhibit lameness.
• The virus has important economic implications since affected animals tend to have permanent damage to their skin, lowering the commercial value of their hide.
• Additionally, the disease often results in chronic debility, reduced milk production, poor growth, infertility, abortion, and sometimes death.