Table of Contents
Human challenge trials:
Many people have volunteered to take part in a controversial testing method called human challenge trials. The method, which involves intentionally infecting volunteers with the novel coronavirus, is being promoted in order to “speed up” the process of preparing a vaccine.
participants of the vaccine group and placebo group upon consent are deliberately exposed to the infection – thus are “challenged” by the disease organism.
While human challenge trials are not new, they are usually carried out in developing medications for diseases that are considered less lethal and have been better understood by scientists over the years, such as malaria.
Critics have questioned undertaking such trials for Covid-19, a potentially deadly disease for even those who are less at risk, and which researchers are still in the early stages of studying.
Global Terrorism Index:
The GTI report issued by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) is based primarily on the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) collated by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, besides other sources.
The index provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism since 2000. It produces a composite score in order to provide an ordinal ranking of countries on the impact of terrorism.
India has moved to the seventh position from the previous year’s eighth in the annual Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2019. The countries ahead of it are Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, Pakistan, and Somalia.
Petersberg Climate Dialogue:
The Climate Dialogue was originally an initiative of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It is hosted by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building, and Nuclear Safety. The Dialogue was co-chaired by Germany and the United Kingdom, the incoming Presidency of the 26th Conference of Parties (COP 26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This has been hosted by Germany since 2010. To provide a forum for informal high-level political discussions, focusing both on international climate negotiations and the advancement of climate action.
Immunity passport:
The idea for the “immunity passport” or a “back to work” pass is this: If you’ve been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and recover, then you have immunity that will protect you from getting the disease again for some amount of time.
A few countries have started considering issuing “immunity passports” or some kind of certificates indicating a person has immunity to COVID-19. However, the World Health Organization has warned against the idea of ‘immunity passports’. It says there is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected against a second infection.