Telangana HC asks government to be ready with swine flu action plan by August 1

HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court has directed the State government to convey by August 1 its plan of action to deal with the likely outbreak of epidemics including swine flu and malaria during rainy season.

The bench of chief justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and justice Shameem Akther gave this direction while hearing a public interest petition which it took up after seeing a letter written by advocate Rapolu Bhaskar who described the prevailing level of preparedness of the state and its machinery to deal with epidemics as pathetic. Senior counsel S Niranjan Reddy who was earlier appointed by the court as amicus curaie has submitted his report in which he said that the state is not following the central guidelines to meet the challenges.
Nor did it equip its health machinery with the required infrastructure. All high fevers need not be seen as mere fevers. Some of them could be swine flu. There are specific symptoms for each of them. The state health machinery must learn those things and should educate doctors in the private sector too to look out for specific symptoms to diagnose the problem and treat them in time. This way we can avert a large number of deaths, Niranjan Reddy said in his report. But the state has only two diagnostic and treatment centres to deal with such problems, he said.
Appreciating the effort of the senior counsel, the bench asked the state to adopt the suggestions made in the report of the amicus. The bench directed the principal secretary of health to furnish a report on the preparedness of the department. “As rains are delayed this year, you should make use of this time and act in tune with the centres guidelines and also equip your people with infrastructure. Furnish us a report by August 1,” the bench said and posted the case to August 2.