National Health Programmes Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The 1962 programme was based on iodized salt.

Goitre is caused mainly by iodine deficiency. The National Goitre Control Programme of 1962 aimed to supply iodized salt to the goitre-endemic areas; it was renamed the National Iodine Deficiency Disorders Control Programme in 1992, with the goal of universal salt iodization.

No vaccine prevents goitre. Vitamin A supplementation prevents night blindness, and a protein-energy diet addresses malnutrition, neither of which controls iodine deficiency.

Answer: D

The option that is not a main component is home based care.

The National Tobacco Control Programme, launched in 2007-08, works through public awareness and IEC campaigns, school programmes, training of health and social workers, monitoring of tobacco control laws (COTPA), tobacco cessation facilities, and monitoring and evaluation including surveys.

Home based care is a component of palliative care and of programmes for chronic illness, not of tobacco control. Public awareness, school programmes and monitoring and evaluation are all named components, so they cannot be the answer.

Answer: D

The one that is not a target of the National Health Mission is eradication of Chikungunya.

The NHM's goals include reducing the infant mortality rate (IMR) and the maternal mortality ratio (MMR), and eliminating kala-azar to fewer than 1 case per 10,000 people at block level, along with lymphatic filariasis and leprosy targets.

Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne viral disease handled under the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme by vector control and case management. No vaccine or specific cure is in routine use, and eradicating it has never been set as a goal, so it is the odd one out.

Answer: D

Drug distribution centres and fever treatment depots belong to malaria control.

Under India's malaria programme, Drug Distribution Centres (DDCs) and Fever Treatment Depots (FTDs) were set up in villages, usually run by volunteers such as school teachers or village workers, so that a person with fever could get a blood smear taken and receive anti-malarial drugs close to home.

Filariasis is controlled by mass drug administration, kala-azar by case detection and indoor residual spraying, and Japanese encephalitis by vaccination and vector control. None of these is organised around fever treatment depots.

Answer: D

The service not included is immunization against HIV.

There is no licensed vaccine against HIV, so immunization cannot form part of any HIV prevention package.

The preventive services of the National AIDS Control Programme phase IV include blood safety, HIV counselling and testing, prevention of parent-to-child transmission, targeted interventions for high-risk groups, condom promotion, management of sexually transmitted infections, IEC, and workplace interventions that bring awareness and services to workers. So the first three options all name genuine components.