Directly Observed Short Course Therapy, vaccination can make India TB-free
Photo: iStock As India looks to technologies such as carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) to trap carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the industrial sectors, Indian researchers are working towards solving a complex problem plaguing their use.
The energy consumed to catch and store CO2 should not be more than the energy released, Atul Narayan Vaidya, director, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur, told Down To Earth (DTE). “You should not indirectly produce more CO2 than captured. The whole crux of the research is in that.”
CCUS technologies capture CO2 emissions from fossil power generation and industrial processes to either store it underground or reuse it to prevent captured CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
Power and industry account for about 50 per cent of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. “Our 2070 Net Zero goal does not talk about halting power plants,” the expert told journalists attending the 108th Indian Science Congress. We need to focus on controlling emissions from power plants, he added.
“If we are going to use fossil fuel or carbonaceous fuel, which will generate CO2, we will have to capture CO2,” he explained.
Industrial CO2 emissions are hard to abate due to the use of fossil fuels not only as a source of energy but also within the process itself, a 2022 Niti Aayog report CCUS Policy Framework and its Deployment Mechanism in India noted
India is looking at all CCUS technologies. The expert said that they evaluate mineralisation (converting captured CO2 permanently into calcium carbonate) and converting CO2 into chemicals or higher molecules such as methanol or formic acid, the expert said.
Methanol, for instance, can replace conventional fuel. But this will likely be a successful mitigation strategy only if clean energy is used to convert CO2 into methanol, Varun Agarwal, senior project associate at the World Resources Institute, previously told DTE.
Western countries, he added, are looking at storing CO2 underground. But that is only a temporary fix and CO2 will come out someday, Vaidya said.
Mineralisation offers a permanent solution, but it is time-consuming, according to the expert.
Solutions that lock up carbon dioxide permanently and those that don’t release emissions during the CCU process, for instance, could potentially help, a study published in the One Earth journal on February 5, 2022 noted.
Shekhar C Mande, former Director of CSIR and Secretary of DSIR, told journalists there are ways of combating tuberculosis (TB): Rapid diagnosis, prevention using vaccination and wellness.
The effectiveness of the existing bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccine, which provides protection against TB, is decreasing, Mande said. Clinical trials of recombinant TB vaccines are ongoing, he added.
The Serum Institute of India (SII) has applied for emergency use authorisation) for their recombinant BCG vaccine, according to media reports.
India has aimed to go TB-free by 2025. Serious efforts are going on across different agencies, including the department of health research and CSIR, Mande noted, adding:
This is a very challenging issue. The TB load in India is very high. It is anticipated that about 30 per cent of the Indian population is already affected by Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
The good news, he added, is that about 90 per cent of that 30 per cent population will never develop TB in their lifetime. Only 10 per cent of those 30 per cent would develop the disease at some point, the expert shared.
“Our objective is to suppress disease in that 10 per cent to make India TB-free by 2025,” he remarked.
The country is focussing on Directly Observed Short Course Therapy (DOTS), where patients take medicines in the presence of their clinician. If we do that, we will be able to make India TB-free, he explained.
DOTS is proven and cost-effective, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It also prevents the development of drug-resistant strains of TB. The strategy has been successful in large and small countries, both rich and poor, according to the United Nations agency.
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