Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has asked the government to submit a report on its preparedness to tackle any outbreak of swine flu, malaria, and dengue fever in the coming season.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice Shameem Akther was dealing with the suo motu public interest litigation based on the letter from advocate Rapo-lu Bhasker, who addressed the court about providing medical facilities in government hospitals to treat diseases like swine flu and malaria, especially in the rural areas.
Concerned by the endemic spread of diseases, which causes a majority of the patients to seek treatment in private hospitals, the High Court took the letter as a PIL and appointed a senior advocate as amicus curiae to assist the court and to submit recommendations on controlling the diseases effectively.
As per the directions, the amicus curiae submitted his recommendations to the court on Friday. The court has asked the government to implement the suggestions. Having obser-ved that only two diagnostic centres namely the Institute of Prevent-ive Medicine and Fever Hospital have facilities to test patients for swi-ne flu, the bench asked the government to set up seven to eight centres across all zones of the state.
The court directed the principal secretary, health, to submit a report covering its plans to tackle the issue and the steps it has taken to prevent the diseases by August 1. The case was adjourned to August 2.
