The Telangana High Court on Thursday asked the State government to file a report on persons hoarding sanitisers and face masks in the State in the backdrop of COVID-19 scare.

A division bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy, hearing a PIL plea on the spread of coronavirus in the State, also sought to know what action the government had taken against such persons. Referring to earlier suggestions to emulate the Kerala government model in tackling COVID-19, the bench asked the government what best practices of Kerala government were being duplicated here in Telangana.

Assistant Solicitor General N. Rajeshwar Rao informed the court that 44 cases of COVID-19 positive had been reported in different parts of the country by March 11. The Centre had already invoked the Disaster Management Act that empowered the State governments to take assistance of private and independent laboratories to check coronavirus.

Advocate General B.S. Prasad told the court that more centres to test samples of persons suspected to have contacted the virus were being set up in the State. The one established in Osmania General Hospital would commence on Friday. The other two being opened at MGH hospital in Warangal and Fever hospital in Hyderabad would begin working from March 20.

Dr. Shankar, Director of Institute of Preventive Medicine, informed the bench that, all the new testing centres put together, 500 samples could be tested in a single day. Presenting a note on the measures taken by the Telangana government to check COVID-19, the AG said the government machinery was geared to contain further spread of the virus. Expressing satisfaction over the government’s action plan, the bench hoped the government would continue the efforts.

Stressing the need to take all possible preventive measures to control COVID-19, the bench pointed out that World Health Organisation had already declared that coronavirus had spread to 73 countries. Even panic situation was prevailing in USA, the bench said.