National Health Programmes Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The one that is not part of integrated vector management is 2 only: case based surveillance and rapid response.

Integrated vector management controls mosquitoes using several methods together: indoor residual spraying, long-lasting insecticidal nets, larval source management (removing breeding sites, larvicides and biological control) and community participation.

Case-based surveillance and rapid response is a key part of the malaria elimination framework, but it deals with detecting and responding to human cases, not with controlling the vector. So it is the one item that does not belong.

Answer: C

The programme is LAQSHYA.

LaQshya (Labour Room Quality Improvement Initiative) was launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2017 specifically to improve the quality of care in labour rooms and maternity operation theatres, reducing preventable maternal and newborn deaths around delivery.

PMSMA gives pregnant women a free antenatal check-up on the 9th of every month. SUMAN aims at assured, dignified and free maternal and newborn care at public facilities. JSSK entitles pregnant women to free delivery, including caesarean section, without out-of-pocket expense.

Answer: A

The correct matching is a-2, b-4, c-1, d-3.

ICMR set up an AIDS Task Force in 1986, the year India's first HIV cases were detected (a-2). Free antiretroviral treatment began in 2004 (b-4). The paediatric ART initiative followed in 2006 (c-1). The current National Strategic Plan for HIV/AIDS covers 2017 to 2024 (d-3).

Every other option breaks at least one of these pairs; for example, matching the task force to 2006 would place it twenty years after the first case.

Answer: A

The tablet is I.F.A., iron and folic acid.

Under the National Health Mission, iron and folic acid supplements are given to pregnant and lactating women, adolescents and children to prevent and treat iron-deficiency anaemia, which is now delivered through the Anaemia Mukt Bharat strategy.

Iodine is used against goitre and other iodine-deficiency disorders, not anaemia. The I-pill is an emergency contraceptive. Chlorine tablets are used to disinfect drinking water.

Answer: C

The ARSH programme aims to provide adolescent-friendly health services.

Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health (ARSH) was introduced under the second phase of the RCH programme. It set up adolescent-friendly health clinics offering counselling, contraception, treatment of reproductive tract infections and menstrual hygiene advice to young people of both sexes.

It is not limited to maternal health awareness, it covers girls as well as boys, and it has nothing to do with elderly care, so the other three options are wrong.

Answer: D

The purpose was the control or eradication of communicable diseases.

India's national health programmes began with campaigns against the major communicable diseases that caused heavy illness and death after independence, such as malaria (1953), filaria, leprosy, tuberculosis and smallpox. Their aim was to control these diseases or eradicate them.

Immunisation is one tool within some programmes, not their overall purpose. Identifying health problems and comparing services are steps in planning, not the reason the programmes were launched.

Answer: D

The National Malaria Control Programme was launched in 1953.

It was one of independent India's first national health programmes, built on indoor residual spraying of DDT, and it brought malaria cases down sharply.

That success led to the launch of the National Malaria Eradication Programme in 1958, which is the usual trap among the options. 1955 and 1960 do not mark either programme.

Answer: D

The correct matching is 1-iii, 2-iv, 3-i, 4-ii.

India's first case of HIV was detected in 1986 (1-iii). State AIDS Control Societies were set up in 1999, under the second phase of the National AIDS Control Programme (2-iv). Free antiretroviral treatment began in 2004 (3-i), and the paediatric ART initiative followed in 2006 (4-ii).

All four options begin with 1-iii, so the question turns on the last three pairs, and only one option places ART in 2004 and paediatric ART in 2006.

Answer: B

ICDS is the Integrated Child Development Services Programme.

Launched on 2 October 1975, ICDS works through anganwadi centres to give children under six and pregnant and lactating women supplementary nutrition, immunisation, health check-ups, referral services, pre-school education and nutrition and health education.

The other expansions are invented. The programme is integrated rather than individual, and it is about child development services, not drugs or an international council.

Answer: B

NACO has branded the STI/RTI services as the Suraksha clinic.

Clinics treating sexually transmitted and reproductive tract infections under the National AIDS Control Programme were given the common brand name Suraksha Clinic, so that people could recognise them easily and use them without stigma. Treating these infections early reduces the risk of HIV transmission.

An ICTC (Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre) offers HIV counselling and testing, a different service. Family planning clinics and under-five clinics belong to the reproductive and child health programmes.