Continue efforts to curb Covid spread in Amravati: HC

Nagpur: Expecting that Amravati district authorities would abide by the statements in affidavits that they would take steps to prevent Covid-19 spread, the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court on Friday disposed of the public interest litigation (PIL).
Filed through counsel Pankaj Navlani, petitioner Shivaray Kulkarni had prayed for stringent measures to control the exponential growth of the deadly virus spread in the district that led to loss of 17 lives.
“In the light of June 2 order, it has been noted that by and large the prayers made in the proceedings have worked themselves out. The collection of swab samples is governed by the guidelines issued by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), an expert body. In view of various affidavits filed on record, we don’t find any reason to keep the present proceedings pending,” a division bench comprising Justice Atul Chandurkar and Justice Amit Borkar said.
Claiming non-compliance of ICMR guidelines by Amravati Municipal Corporation (AMC), the petitioner had contended that the district witnessed manifold rise in cases with the highest mortality rate and the pattern is unique.
In the last hearing, the HC had expressed concern over high mortality rate due to novel coronavirus in Amravati and directed the AMC to file an affidavit giving details of all 17 deaths categorized as Covid casualties.
Earlier, the judges expressed satisfaction over collector’s affidavit stating that the ICMR guidelines were being implemented in true spirit.
The AMC’s medical officer in his affidavit had enumerated steps like thermal screening of all passengers travelling by rail or road to trace asymptomatic patients apart from door-to-door survey for detecting symptomatic patients.
In his affidavit, civil surgeon referred to various steps taken to curb coronavirus spread, including issuance of guidelines to hospital staff for collecting swab samples of suspected patients. Regarding collection of samples in home death cases, he said there were no guidelines issued by the ICMR.