Why in the News?

• The government has banned 16 fixed-dose combination (FDC) drugs, including certain antibiotic combinations and various dermatological products containing aloe vera and herbal ingredients, over concerns of irrational formulation and lack of scientific justification.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• About FDC Drugs (Meaning, Rational vs Irrational FDCs, Regulatory Work, etc.)
• News Summary (Ban on FDC Drugs, Rationale, Way Forward)

About Fixed-Dose Combination (FDC) Drugs

• A FDC drug is a formulation that contains two or more active pharmaceutical ingredients in a single dosage form, such as a tablet, capsule, or cream. FDCs are widely used across a range of conditions, including:

• Infections (antibiotic combinations)
• Pain management
• Skin ailments
• Diabetes and cardiovascular diseases
• Cough, cold, and fever

Rational vs Irrational FDCs

• A rational FDC is one where each ingredient contributes meaningfully to the therapeutic effect, ingredients have compatible pharmacological properties, and clinical evidence shows the combination is more beneficial than using the drugs separately.
• An irrational FDC is one where the ingredients have no scientifically established rationale for being combined, or where there is little or no evidence from clinical trials to support the combination.

Regulatory Framework in India

• The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, is the apex regulator for pharmaceuticals in India.
• The Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and its rules govern the approval, manufacture, and sale of drugs.
• The government has periodically banned irrational FDCs based on recommendations from expert committees, including a landmark ban in 2016 that affected hundreds of formulations.
• Public health experts, including scientists at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), have long warned that irrational combinations expose patients to unnecessary risks and contribute to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). 

News Summary: Ban on 16 FDC Drugs

• The government has banned 16 FDC drugs, citing lack of scientific evidence, potential safety risks, and the threat of fuelling antimicrobial resistance.
• The banned products include certain antibiotic combinations and a range of dermatological products containing aloe vera and herbal ingredients.

Key Rationale for the Ban

• Public health experts explain that:
  • Irrational combinations expose patients to unnecessary drugs.
  • They increase treatment costs.
  • In the case of antibiotics, they contribute to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a growing global health concern where bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites no longer respond to medicines designed to kill them.
• Combinations often lack robust clinical trial evidence showing that the ingredients work better together than when used separately.

Examples of Problematic Combinations

• Amoxicillin + Serratiopeptidase
  • One of the banned products combines amoxicillin (an antibiotic) with serratiopeptidase (a proteolytic enzyme).
  • Serratiopeptidase is acid-labile, meaning it can be degraded in the stomach before reaching the bloodstream.
  • No peer-reviewed randomised controlled trial has shown that adding serratiopeptidase improves bacterial clearance or reduces the amount of antibiotic required.
  • Claims of enhanced penetration are largely based on laboratory studies, not human clinical evidence.
  • No major treatment guideline recommends serratiopeptidase as an adjunct to antibiotics.
• Norfloxacin + Tinidazole
  • Norfloxacin treats bacterial infections, while tinidazole targets protozoal infections.
  • Patients rarely suffer from bacterial and protozoal infections simultaneously.
  • Unnecessary exposure to both drugs promotes bacterial resistance without added benefit.
• Amoxicillin + Clavulanic Acid (Augmentin)
  • Clavulanic acid blocks enzymes that resistant bacteria use to destroy amoxicillin.
  • However, if the bacteria causing infection are not resistant, clavulanic acid is unnecessary.
  • Widespread and indiscriminate use accelerates AMR.

Antimicrobial Resistance Concern

• Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most serious public health threats today. When antibiotic combinations are marketed as being more effective without sufficient evidence:
  • They encourage unnecessary or prolonged antibiotic use.
  • They increase antibiotic exposure in the community.
  • They create selective pressure on bacteria, allowing resistant organisms to survive and multiply.
• The antibiotic pipeline is running dangerously dry, making it critical to preserve the effectiveness of existing drugs.

Aloe Vera-Based Dermatological Products

• Several banned products are dermatological creams containing aloe vera along with Vitamin E, jojoba oil, olive oil, tea tree oil, and other moisturising or herbal components.
• Longevity in the market does not automatically establish scientific validity.
• Robust evidence demonstrating the superior efficacy of these combinations over individual ingredients is often lacking.
• Steroid-antifungal combinations are particularly concerning, while they provide temporary relief, steroids can suppress the skin's immune response, causing fungal infections to worsen, spread, or develop resistance.

Risks to Patients

• Using irrational FDCs exposes patients to several risks:
  • Adverse effects and drug interactions
  • Allergic reactions to unnecessary components
  • Inability to adjust individual doses, doctors cannot increase one ingredient without overdosing on the other
  • Masking underlying complications, reducing precision in treatment
  • Higher costs without added benefit

Way Forward

• For Patients
  • Understand that a medicine containing multiple ingredients is not necessarily more effective than a targeted treatment.
  • Consult doctors about appropriate alternatives if currently using banned products.
  • Stopping an irrational FDC does not mean stopping treatment; safer, evidence-based alternatives are available.
• For Doctors
  • De-escalate patients to rational therapies.
  • Prescribe medicines supported by strong clinical evidence.
  • Avoid combination products unless the combination has clear scientific support.
• For Pharmacists
  • Stay aware of the drug regulator's list of banned FDCs.
  • Flag irrational prescriptions where appropriate.
  • Educate patients about available alternatives.
• For the Health System
  • Strengthen antimicrobial stewardship programmes.
  • Enhance surveillance of AMR and irrational prescribing.
  • Promote rational use of medicines through medical education and public awareness.
  • Continue periodic review of FDCs in the market.

Broader Considerations on Vitamins and Probiotics with Antibiotics

• Experts also note that automatically combining antibiotics with vitamins or probiotics is not evidence-based:
  • Probiotics may be advised by doctors on a case-specific basis.
  • Vitamins may not be needed for short antibiotic courses, except for vulnerable groups.
  • Patients should follow their doctor's specific advice rather than relying on assumed benefits.

Context:

• India's rapid digitalisation of financial services, led by the widespread adoption of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), has transformed banking convenience but has also expanded opportunities for sophisticated financial fraud.
• The growing use of mule accounts—bank accounts used to launder illicit funds—has emerged as the backbone of digital financial crime, necessitating AI-driven transaction monitoring rather than conventional rule-based surveillance.

Digital Banking - Expanding Opportunities and Risks:

• Banking has shifted from branch-based operations to a largely mobile ecosystem.
• UPI alone now processes nearly ₹30 trillion in monthly transactions across over 800 million digital users.
• While digital payment infrastructure promotes financial inclusion and economic efficiency, every new payment channel also creates avenues for cybercriminals to move illicit money.

AI is Transforming Financial Fraud:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) has significantly enhanced the sophistication and scale of financial crimes.
• For example,
  • Deepfake technology enables fraudsters to imitate voices of senior executives and issue fake payment instructions.
  • Synthetic identities, created using stolen personal data, bypass conventional customer onboarding and Know Your Customer (KYC) checks.
  • AI-powered scams have reached unprecedented levels, with deepfake-related fraud reportedly affecting nearly half of Indian adults.

Major Forms of Digital Fraud and Regulatory Response:

• There are three interconnected dimensions of financial fraud:
  • Identity fraud: Fraudsters create or use fake identities to open bank accounts.
  • Monetary fraud: Victims are manipulated through social engineering into voluntarily authorising payments, rendering multi-factor authentication ineffective.
  • Mule accounts: These accounts serve as the principal channel for laundering stolen money and dispersing criminal proceeds.
• Mule accounts - The backbone of digital crime:
  • Mule accounts function as the "getaway vehicles" of digital financial crime.
  • In a single year, enforcement agencies froze around 4.5 lakh mule accounts, through which over ₹17,000 crore had already been routed.
  • Their rapid creation and use make them one of the biggest challenges for financial regulators and banks.
• Regulatory response:
  • The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has initiated several measures to counter digital fraud.
  • For example,
    • Development of Mule Hunter. ai for identifying suspicious mule account networks.
    • Collaboration with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to build an advanced digital payments intelligence platform.
    • A discussion paper proposing deliberate transaction "frictions" or temporary delays for suspicious fund transfers to prevent irreversible losses.
  • However, fraudsters quickly adapt to new regulations, making static rule-based systems increasingly ineffective.

Limitations of Existing Transaction Monitoring Systems:

• Most banks and NBFCs already deploy transaction monitoring systems, but these suffer from:
  • Excessive false alerts, creating "alert fatigue."
  • Analysts spend substantial time reviewing low-risk cases instead of genuine threats.
  • Reduced trust in the monitoring system, increasing the likelihood that critical suspicious transactions remain unnoticed.
• A global bank incurred a penalty of nearly $3 billion, partly because genuine alerts remained unattended amid an overwhelming volume of notifications.

Need of the Hour and Way Forward:

• AI-based intelligence layer: The solution lies not in generating more alerts but in improving their quality through an AI-powered intelligence layer capable of:
  • Prioritising genuinely suspicious transactions.
  • Identifying rules that produce excessive false positives.
  • Detecting interconnected mule account networks in real time.
  • Enabling authorities to freeze funds before they are dispersed.
  • Improving operational efficiency by allowing investigators to focus on high-risk cases.
• Way forward: Banks and NBFCs should integrate AI strategically rather than adopting it superficially. Suggested measures -
  • Deploy AI to minimise false positives and optimise analyst productivity.
  • Build predictive systems capable of identifying emerging mule networks before transactions are completed.
  • Continuously update fraud detection models to match evolving AI-enabled criminal techniques.
  • Strengthen collaboration among banks, RBI, NPCI, law enforcement agencies, and cybersecurity institutions.
  • Enhance customer awareness regarding deepfakes, phishing, and social engineering attacks.

Conclusion:

• As AI becomes a tool for both financial innovation and cybercrime, India's financial ecosystem must evolve beyond traditional transaction monitoring.
• Robust transaction intelligence will remain central to building a secure, resilient, and digitally inclusive Bharat.

Context

• Water is the foundation of life, economic development, agriculture, and ecological sustainability.
• India is facing an unprecedented water crisis driven by climate change, erratic monsoon patterns, rapid urbanisation, population growth, and unsustainable water use.
• With only 4% of the world's freshwater resources supporting nearly 18% of the global population, the country faces increasing pressure on its limited water resources.
• Ensuring water security has become essential for social welfare and long-term economic growth.

The Growing Water Crisis

• Many Indian cities, including Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mussoorie, are experiencing severe water stress due to declining rainfall and rising demand.
• A significant monsoon rainfall deficit has reduced water availability, while several major river basins have crossed internationally recognised thresholds of water scarcity.
• Rivers such as the Krishna, Cauvery, Mahi, and Tapi have witnessed critically low per capita water availability.
• At the global level, polluted rivers, depleted aquifers, and increasing freshwater demand have left billions of people facing seasonal water shortages, making water insecurity a worldwide challenge.

Water Infrastructure Gaps

• Although programmes such as the Jal Jeevan Mission and PM Krishi Sinchayee Yojana have expanded access to water and irrigation, major structural weaknesses persist.
• Poor maintenance of infrastructure, inadequate wastewater treatment, high conveyance losses, widespread water pollution, and weak financial sustainability continue to undermine efficient water management.
• Strengthening existing infrastructure and improving governance are as important as creating new facilities.

Steps Towards Sustainable Water Management

• Climate-Proofing Water Systems
  • Building climate-resilient water systems is essential to address increasing risks from floods, droughts, and changing rainfall patterns.
  • Climate risk assessments help identify vulnerable regions and guide investments in critical infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, drainage systems, and electricity networks.
  • Urban local bodies can utilise mechanisms like the Urban Challenge Fund to finance such assessments and improve long-term water resilience.
• Water Reuse and Circular Economy
  • Adopting a circular economy approach to water management can significantly reduce pressure on freshwater resources.
  • Treated wastewater can be safely reused for construction, landscaping, industrial cooling, and vehicle washing instead of relying solely on freshwater.
  • Scientific planning for treated wastewater reuse not only conserves water but also creates employment, generates municipal revenue, and promotes sustainable urban development.
• Sustainable Agricultural Practices
  • Agriculture accounts for the largest share of India's freshwater consumption, making efficient irrigation a national priority.
  • Expanding micro-irrigation systems such as drip irrigation and sprinkler technologies can greatly reduce water wastage compared to conventional flood irrigation.
  • Better-designed subsidies should support small and marginal farmers, while crop diversification towards less water-intensive, higher-value crops can improve incomes and conserve water.
  • Strengthening the PM Fasal Bima Yojana through affordable insurance and faster claim settlement can further enhance farmers' resilience to climate and crop risks.
• Closing Water Data Gaps
  • Reliable data is crucial for effective water governance.
  • While information on water availability is relatively strong, data on withdrawals, distribution losses, and actual consumption remains limited at the river basin level.
  • Deploying AI, smart water meters, and advanced water accounting systems can improve monitoring, detect leakages, and support equitable water allocation.
  • The successful rollout of smart electricity meters provides a useful model for modernising water management systems.

Conclusion

• Water is not merely a natural resource but a vital economic resource that sustains livelihoods, agriculture, industries, and ecosystems.
• Achieving long-term water security requires integrated policies that combine climate resilience, efficient infrastructure, wastewater reuse, sustainable agriculture, and data-driven governance.
• Strong political will, transparent governance, and public participation are essential to reverse growing water scarcity.
• By embracing sustainable water management, India can safeguard its natural resources, strengthen economic development, and secure a resilient future for generations to come.

Why in news?

Marking the 18th anniversary of tiger reintroductions at Sariska Tiger Reserve (Rajasthan), the Centre released two new assessments: a roadmap for managing tigers in the years ahead, and a document distilling lessons from 12 reintroduction initiatives across the country.

The core message is a shift in focus — conservation must move beyond simply counting tiger numbers to reviving reserves that are struggling.

As India's tiger population reaches 3,682, the Centre has identified 25 priority reserves for habitat recovery, prey restoration, and targeted reintroductions.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Tiger Numbers Are Rising — But Concentrated in Pockets
• The Core Concept: Source vs. Sink Populations
• Lessons from Past Reintroductions
• Conclusion

Tiger Numbers Are Rising — But Concentrated in Pockets

• India's tiger population has grown steadily, from 1,411 in 2006 to 3,682 in 2022, across 58 tiger reserves spread over 85,000 sq km. But the headline number hides an uneven reality.
• Just 10-12 reserves account for about 36% of the total population. 12 reserves have fewer than three tigers each.
• Three reserves — Kawal, Kamlang, and Dampa — have zero tigers.
• This creates a two-sided problem. In high-density reserves, tigers disperse to forest edges, farmland, and mixed-use land, leading to human-wildlife conflict, greater dependence on livestock, and higher mortality from railways, roads, and canals.
• In low-tiger reserves, forests may be intact but prey is scarce — neither situation is ideal.

The Core Concept: Source vs. Sink Populations

• This is the analytical heart of the roadmap. Conservation is being reframed around the imbalance between two kinds of populations:
  • Source populations: reserves where habitat, prey, and tiger numbers are all high (e.g., Corbett, Bandipur, Kaziranga).
  • Sink populations: areas with no breeding tigers or poor connectivity to healthy forests.
• This unevenness threatens long-term conservation. The Centre's plan therefore calls for:
  • Consolidating source populations in 13 tiger reserves.
  • Priority interventions in at least 25 reserves, including reintroductions where fewer than five tigers remain.

Identifying 'Recipient Sites' — And Why It Matters

• Tiger population growth has held steady at about 6% annually, but the uneven spread means high-density regions bear the burden of managing dispersing tigers, conflict, and poaching — even as vast forests remain empty of tigers.
• The causes of this imbalance include forest fragmentation, tigers being discouraged from moving long distances, poor prey in sink areas, and human pressure.
• The solution lies in creating a well-connected landscape across reserves, territorial forests, and mixed-use areas to establish a metapopulation — enabling genetic exchange and reducing long-term extinction risk.
• To act on this, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) built an index assessing each of the 58 reserves on habitat, prey, and tiger population.
• Based on this, 25 reserves were identified where at least one of these three factors is under stress.
  • The Central Indian and Eastern Ghats landscape has the largest number of reserves flagged for priority intervention.
  • The North Eastern Hills and Brahmaputra floodplains have extensive forests with strong recovery potential — if prey, protection, and connectivity improve.

Lessons from Past Reintroductions

• The second assessment reviews a decade-plus of reintroduction experience, with mixed results:
  • Sariska (2008): India's first reintroduction; first litter born in 2012.
  • Panna (MP): Reintroduced after a local wipeout; succeeded faster, with the first litter in 2010. Since 2009, ten translocations have been carried out overall.
  • Satkosia (Odisha): An acknowledged failure. The project was rejected by local communities, faced livestock-predation resentment, and one relocated male tiger was killed in a snare trap.
  • Mukundara Hills (Rajasthan): Progress was slow due to limited breeding success.
• The key takeaway: reintroduction is strictly a last resort, to be attempted only after rigorous scientific assessment of habitat, prey, protection, and — crucially — socio-economic conditions and local community acceptance.

Conclusion

• The roadmap marks a maturing of India's tiger conservation story. Having succeeded spectacularly in raising numbers — from 1,411 to 3,682 — the challenge has shifted from quantity to distribution.
• With a handful of reserves overcrowded and many others empty, the new strategy rightly targets habitat quality, prey recovery, and landscape connectivity to build a healthy metapopulation, rather than chasing headline counts.
• The reintroduction experience, from Panna's success to Satkosia's failure, underlines a vital lesson: ecological science alone is not enough — community acceptance and socio-economic realities ultimately decide whether tigers can return.
• Reintroduction, as the Centre stresses, must remain a carefully judged last resort.

Why in news?

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) is tightening regulations around "dark patterns" in digital insurance marketplaces to curb mis-selling and boost consumer trust.

In a notable step, the regulator has partnered with a statutory body — the Institute of Public Auditors of India — to monitor these practices across the industry.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• What Are 'Dark Patterns'?
• Why It Matters: Trust and Financial Inclusion
• IRDAI's Steps
• How Big Is the Problem?

What Are 'Dark Patterns'?

• Dark patterns are deliberate, deceptive design mechanisms hidden in websites and apps that manipulate users into sharing data or making choices they otherwise would not — by pressuring or misleading them.
• Common examples include:
  • Forcing users to provide personal information just to view product offerings
  • Deliberately making it difficult to cancel subscriptions or policies
  • Spam calling to push products
  • Hidden charges
• The underlying problem is mis-selling — a long-standing issue where agents, brokers, and banks push complex products to unknowing customers to boost sales at the cost of credibility.

Why It Matters: Trust and Financial Inclusion?

• IRDAI Chairman framed the issue around consumer trust. His central concern:
  • insurers ask for excessive personal information before revealing product details, hiding products behind complex processes.
  • This limits product discovery and drives away consumers "already on the fence" about buying insurance.
• If people cannot freely access information on products, price, and performance, they cannot make informed decisions.
• The goal is to make financial inclusion "more understandable, more trusted, and more actionable."

IRDAI's Steps

• The regulator's actions have unfolded in stages:
  • Self-assessment (April 2026): IRDAI directed insurers to assess themselves for dark patterns and submit observations. Tellingly, almost all claimed they had none — a response that prompted the regulator to seek independent verification.
  • Independent monitoring: IRDAI roped in the Institute of Public Auditors of India to study and monitor, over nine months, which insurers actually use dark patterns and which do not.
  • Consultation paper (July 2026): IRDAI plans to release a paper on insurance distribution reforms, expected to include steps to curb mis-selling across channels, improve transparency, and tweak the existing commission-based distribution model.
• The RBI parallel: These moves follow the Reserve Bank of India's comprehensive framework to curb mis-selling of financial instruments by banks, effective January 1. Since banks are also licensees in the insurance sector, analysts said it was now IRDAI's "turn to bring in suitable guidelines."
• Industry impact: An analyst noted insurers might face short-term problems if norms tighten, but the effect would be "largely inconsequential," while tighter rules would build long-term consumer trust and benefit the industry.

How Big Is the Problem?

• Dark patterns have plagued the industry since insurance moved to digital channels, eroding trust and repelling hesitant consumers.
• A survey found:
  • Around 80% faced hidden charges, difficulty cancelling policies, and forced data sharing.
  • Around 90% were repeatedly pestered through unsolicited calls and messages to buy or continue policies.
• The study covered major digital insurance platforms including Policybazaar, Acko, and Tata AIG, highlighting how widespread the problem is.

Conclusion

• IRDAI's crackdown reflects a growing regulatory recognition that consumer protection in the digital age is not only about product quality but about honest design and transparent choice.
• The insurers' near-universal denial of using dark patterns — met by the regulator's decision to bring in independent auditors — captures the trust deficit at the heart of the issue.
• By pairing external monitoring with distribution reforms, and following the RBI's lead on mis-selling, IRDAI is signalling a broader shift across India's financial regulators toward embedding transparency and consumer trust as core supervisory goals.
• The success of the effort will hinge on how firmly the eventual guidelines are enforced.

About Animal Discoveries and Plant Discoveries 2025:

• The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), the country’s premier institution for faunal exploration and research, publishes Animal Discoveries every year detailing the new discoveries of fauna.
• Similarly, the Botanical Survey of India (BSI), the country’s premier organisation for plant research and taxonomy, publishes Plant Discoveries every year detailing the new discoveries of flora.

Highlights of Animal Discoveries 2025:

• India added many new species to its fauna in 2025.

• Among the states, Kerala recorded the highest number of new species (98), followed by West Bengal (76), Karnataka (67), and Arunachal Pradesh (65).
• Among the animal groups added to the country’s fauna Hymenoptera contributed the highest number of additions (106), followed by Lepidoptera (65), Diptera (64), Arachnida (64), Coleoptera (55), and Pisces (50), reflecting the remarkable diversity and continuing discovery of India’s invertebrate fauna.
• Among the crucial fauna discovered in 2025 are:
  • Myotis himalaicus, a new species of Himalayan bat.
  • Ptyctolaemus namdaphaensis and Ptyctolaemu siangensis are two newly discovered species of green fan-throated lizard from Arunachal Pradesh.
  • Lycodon irwini, a species commonly known as Irwin’s wolf snake, discovered on the remote Great Nicobar Island.

Highlights of Plant Discoveries 2025:

• Among the states, Arunachal Pradesh emerged as the leading contributor with 49 discoveries, followed by Uttarakhand (39) and Kerala (37).
• Nearly 64 percent of all newly documented taxa were recorded from the Himalayan region, the Western Ghats, and the North-Eastern states.
• Approximately 43% of the newly described taxa belong to vascular plants.
• Among the most notable discoveries are several wild relatives of economically and ecologically significant plant groups, including Begonia, Impatiens (balsams), legumes, and orchids.
• Among the crucial plants discovered are,
  • Polystichum siangense, a recently discovered species of fern belonging to the family Dryopteridaceae, found in the Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh.
  • Miliusa beddomei, a new wild member of the custard apple family discovered in the Western Ghats.
  • Hericium indicum, a recently discovered species of wild edible tooth fungus in Uttarakhand.

About Trimbakeshwar Temple:

• It is an ancient and historic Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva.
• It is located in Trimbak village in the Nasik district of Maharashtra.
• It lies near the mountain named Brahamagiri, from which the river Godavari flows.
• It is one of twelve famous Jyotirlingas in India.
• The spiritual history of the Trimbakeshwar Temple dates back many centuries and is mentioned in sacred texts such as the Shiva Purana, Skanda Purana, and Padma Purana.
• The present temple structure was constructed by the third Peshwa, Balaji Bajirao (1740-1760), on the site of an old temple.
• Architecture:
  • The temple is constructed in the Hemadpanthi style, a traditional architectural form known for its strength, symmetry, and minimal use of mortar.
  • It is built entirely from black basalt stone.
  • Its walls and tower (shikhara) have many small carvings.
  • he courtyard is wide, and small shrines line the outer walls.
  • The sanctum houses the three-faced Jyotirlinga, which is adorned with a dazzling jewelled crown, believed to be from the Pandava era.
  • Within the temple premises lies the Kushavarta Kund, a sacred pond regarded as the origin of the Godavari River.

About Marburg Virus Disease (MVD):

• MVD, formerly known as Marburg haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness caused by the Marburg virus.
• The Marburg virus is a zoonotic virus that belongs to the Filoviridae family (filovirus), the same group of viruses that includes Ebola.
• It is a rare disease that occurs in humans and non-human primates (chimpanzees, gorillas, and monkeys).
• It is named for the German city where scientists became ill with the disease's first known cases in 1967 while handling monkeys imported from Africa.
• The Marburg virus is most commonly found in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Transmission:
  • The Marburg virus is naturally carried by Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus), which serve as its primary reservoir.
  • Once a human is infected, the virus spreads through direct contact with the blood, saliva, vomit, urine, faeces, and other bodily fluids of an infected person.
  • It can also spread through contaminated objects such as bedding, clothing or medical equipment that have come into contact with infected bodily fluids.
  • Unlike some respiratory viruses, Marburg is not airborne and does not spread through casual contact.
• Treatment:
  • There is no approved vaccine or specific treatment for MVD.
  • Treatment focuses on relieving symptoms and supporting patients through the course of the disease.