Read the following passage and answer the question.
Influenza is caused by a virus that attacks mainly the upper respiratory tract-the nose, throat and bronchi and rarely also the lungs. The genetic make up of Influenza virus allows for both major and minor genetic changes, making them immune to existing vaccines. Three times in the last century, the Influenza virus have undergone major genetic changes, resulting in global Pandemics and large tolls in terms of both disease and deaths. The most infamous pandemic was "Spanish Flu" which affected large parts of the world population and is thought to have killed at least 40 million people in 1918-19. More recently, two other Influenza pandemics occurred in 1957 (Asian Influenza) and 1968 (Hong Kong Influenza).
The measures to control epidemics can be:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Mass Vaccination Programme
Option (1) Mass Vaccination Programme — Correct. An epidemic spreads when a disease passes quickly from person to person. Improvements in medical cures, programmes for mass vaccination and efforts to improve sanitation helped to control epidemics, because a vaccinated population no longer catches and spreads the disease.
NCERT (2025-26): “2.2 Size and Growth of India’s Population … Improvements in medical cures for these diseases, programmes for mass vaccination, and efforts to improve sanitation helped to control epidemics. However, diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and dysentery continue to kill people even today, although the numbers are nowhere as high as they used to be in the epidemics of the past.…” |