Editorial 1: How the deadliest virus in human history paved the way for new cures
Introduction
- Influenza viruses are almost always circulating among humans. The nature of the virus means that every year, the virus’s genetic material undergoes some minor changes, rendering it a little different from the virus of the previous year. So scientists have to guess which changes are likely to survive the next year, and design or update their vaccines accordingly.
Nature of the virus
- An influenza virus can also infect birds, pigs, horses, and other domestic animals.
- It can assort the types of the two genes it contains – haemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N) – in these animals to generate a new virus altogether, some of which may infect humans.
- All these complications ensure that designing an effective vaccine for influenza remains challenging.
- The virus mainly infected the lungs, and laid waste to them.
- While all eight pieces of the virus’s genetic material caused severe disease, two in particular stood out: the haemagglutinin and the RNA polymerase genes.
Haemagglutinin and RNA polymerase
- Haemagglutinin is the protein on the outer surface of the virus that docks with proteins on the cells of another organism.
- This way, the virus has a portal through to begin its invasion. The haemagglutinin segment of the 1918 strain contained modifications such that the virus could easily gain access to cells.
- The viral RNA polymerase, on the other hand, makes copies of the viral genetic material.
- In the H1N1 strain, the polymerase was extremely efficient at this process, allowing the virus to make numerous copies of itself in a very short span of time.
- This then took a heavy toll on the infected cell, since the virus hijacked the cellular machinery to replicate itself.
Unrivalled
- The full virus demonstrated a pathogenicity unrivalled by any other influenza virus scientists have ever studied – recombinant or natural.
- It was highly virulent: there were 39,000-times more virions (virus particles) in the lungs of the mice infected with the 1918 virus than those infected by the more benign laboratory strain.
- The former lungs were filled with fluid within days, causing extensive lung damage and resulting in death.
- The haemagglutinin and the RNA polymerase genes were important reasons for the extreme nature of the 1918 virus, by themselves they did not wreak just as much havoc as when they did in combination with the other gene segments.
- All viruses have to ensure they will be transmitted to more hosts. A virus that kills its host too soon will fail at this objective because a virus is only alive as long as it is inside a host.
- So a change in a virus that makes it more pathogenic will either kill the host faster or it will become an easier target for the host’s immune system. Both outcomes are detrimental to the virus’s long-term survival.
- So such genetic changes must be associated with alterations elsewhere in the genome that mitigate those effects on the creature’s long-term survival prospects.
- It could be a mutation that enhances its transmission rate, one that slows the viral life cycle, or something else that allows the virus to escape the immune system long enough for it to be transmitted.
Conclusion
- The 1918 influenza pandemic is a reminder to us all, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, that ever so rarely, nature will arrive at that perfect, deadly combination after mixing thousands of genes and end up creating something as destructive as the 1918 H1N1 influenza virus. Ironically, nature’s ability to do so is at the very heart of evolution, and of all life on earth.
Editorial 2: On protecting the biodiversity of the northeast
Context
- To aim for a 10 trillion-dollar economy, without protecting India’s environment, is a goal not worth pursuing.
Development and Environment protection
- Fostering tourism, undertaking construction projects and developing infrastructure are ways through which a State generates revenue and creates employment opportunities.
- However, some of them come at a steep environmental cost.
- In the recent case of Re: Cleanliness of Umiam Lake versus State of Meghalaya (2023), the Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice W. Diengdoh, in its order, stated that “In the absence of any other employment opportunities and in the name of promoting tourism, the natural beauty of the State should not be destroyed”.
The biodiverse northeast India
- Northeast India is a green belt region due to its abundant natural resources such as oil, natural gas, minerals and fresh water.
- The Garo-Khasi-Jaintia hills and the Brahmaputra valley are some of the most important biodiversity hotspots.
- Though the northeast is industrially backward, deforestation, floods, and existing industries are causing serious problems to the environment in the region.
- An environmental assessment of the North East Rural Livelihood Project undertaken by the Ministry of Development of the North-eastern Region lays out that Northeast India lies within ecologically fragile, biologically rich region, highly prone to climatic changes, located in trans boundary river basins.
- Both flora and fauna of the areas are under threat due to deforestation, mining, quarrying, shifting cultivation.
Environmental laws
- Thus far a considerable number of environmental laws and policies have been developed in the country, especially during the 1980s.
- Offences related to or against the environment have also taken the shape of “public nuisance” under Sections 268 to 290 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, dealing with pollution of land, air, and water.
- However, as the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution grants autonomy to District Councils, it limits the authority of the State over matters pertaining to the jurisdiction of the District Councils, including the use of land.
- In many instances, like in the case of the Umiam Lake, the District Councils do not place any regulations for the preservation and protection of land, especially those around waterbodies.
- PILs and judicial activism encouraged under Articles 32 and 226 of the Constitution led to a wave of environmental litigation.
- The enforcement of strict guidelines and imposition of heavy penalties by judicial and quasi-judicial organs of the State, often rescue the ecologically sensitive flora and fauna of these regions.
The pressing priority
- Central and State governments have to develop infrastructure, generate revenue and create employment through sustainable policies.
- The ‘Negative List’ in the North East Industrial Development Scheme (NEIDS), 2017 is a step in the right direction.
- If an entity is not complying with environment standards; not having applicable environmental clearances; does not have consent from the concerned pollution boards, it will not be eligible for any incentive under the NEIDS and will be put on the ‘negative list’.
- Similarly, the ‘Act Fast for Northeast’ policy should not only include “trade and commerce” but also the preservation of “environment and ecology” in the region.
Conclusion
- The government should consider the case of creating a uniform environmental legislation, which caters to environmental issues at all levels of governance.
