MCQ confusion traps

Elimination is not eradication. Elimination may mean reaching a defined low threshold in a country/district; eradication means zero worldwide with no further control needed.

Tuberculosis target 2025 is a target, not a declaration that India is tuberculosis-free.

Leprosy “eliminated nationally in 2005” means prevalence below 1 per 10,000—not zero cases.

Do not call dapsone alone the current leprosy treatment. Current treatment is multidrug therapy.

Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course belongs to tuberculosis; Multidrug Therapy belongs to leprosy; Mass Drug Administration is used for population-level campaigns such as lymphatic filariasis.

Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme → National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme; National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke → National Programme for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases. These are favourite old-name/current-name traps.

National Centre for Vector Borne Diseases Control is the present central body; Odisha pages may still display National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme. Read the wording before choosing “programme” versus “centre/directorate.”

National AIDS Control Programme Phase V had a fixed end date of 31 March 2026. Current questions may instead use Mission AIDS Suraksha; do not assume an unannounced Phase VI.

Tetanus toxoid → Tetanus-diphtheria vaccine in the current adolescent and pregnancy schedule. Old questions and old wall charts may still say tetanus toxoid.

U-WIN tracks individual vaccination events; Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network chiefly tracks vaccine stocks and cold-chain logistics.

Human Papillomavirus 2026 campaign: one free quadrivalent dose, girls aged 14 years. Do not confuse this campaign with the infant schedule.

Screening age: Common non-communicable-disease screening targets adults aged 30 years and above, not 40 or 45.

Cancer screening is not cancer diagnosis. Biopsy is the decisive confirmation.

Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid = cervical screening; visual oral examination = oral screening; Clinical Breast Examination = breast screening.

A reactive Human Immunodeficiency Virus screen is not the completed diagnosis. Serial tests are required.

Hepatitis C antibody does not prove current viraemia. Confirm active infection with ribonucleic-acid testing.

Hepatitis A/E = faeco-oral; B/C/D = mainly blood/body fluids. Hepatitis D depends on hepatitis B.

Malaria: Do not wait for a fever peak to collect blood; test a suspected case promptly.

Dengue: The dangerous phase may begin when fever falls. A platelet count alone does not classify severe dengue.

Dengue early test = Non-Structural Protein 1/nucleic acid; later test = Immunoglobulin M.

Aedes = day biter; Anopheles = mainly night biter; Culex = filariasis/Japanese encephalitis associations.

Japanese encephalitis: Pig is an amplifying host; human is usually a dead-end host.

Scrub typhus vector is a chigger mite, not a mosquito. Weil-Felix OX-K is a clue but a weak test.

Rabies category III requires wound care + vaccine + rabies immunoglobulin. Category II does not routinely require immunoglobulin.

Rabies immunoglobulin goes into/around the wound, not simply as a distant intramuscular injection.

Oral Rehydration Solution works through sodium-glucose co-transport and prepared solution is discarded after 24 hours.

Tetanus is not transmitted person to person, and recovery from tetanus does not reliably immunise.

Oral Polio Vaccine is oral/live; Inactivated Polio Vaccine is injectable/inactivated.

Sickle-cell trait is not sickle-cell disease. The elimination mission targets screening, counselling, and reduction of disease burden—not removal of a gene from the population.

Hypertensive emergency requires acute target-organ damage, not merely a very high reading.

Computed tomography comes before stroke-specific reperfusion decisions because haemorrhage must be excluded.

Delirium is acute and fluctuating; dementia is usually chronic and progressive.

Antimicrobial resistance develops in microorganisms, not in the patient’s body.

One Health connects human, animal, plant, and environmental health; it is more than a veterinary programme.

Snakebite: Immobilise and transfer; do not cut, suck, ice, or apply a tight tourniquet. Antivenom treats envenoming, not every bite.