Ensure corona reports available within 48 hrs: HC
New Delhi: Delhi high court asked the Delhi government to ensure that reports of novel coronavirus tests conducted on suspected patients is made available within 24-48 hours.
With such a direction, a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad disposed of a PIL seeking directions to the Centre and the state government to ensure swift testing of Covid-19 patients and ensure zero delay in providing the results.
Filed by advocate Rakesh Malhotra, the petition cited TOI news reports to seek the court’s intervention claiming delay in testing was affecting contact tracing, thereby allowing the infection to spread in the capital.
Also read: Vital role of Jan Aushadi Kendras in COVID-19 Situation
Pending samples of swab
Malhotra said media reports showed that over the past month, the number of swab samples pending for tests in Delhi, which started with 470 on April1, had gone up by 7 times and reached 3,295, on April 29.
On its part, the government informed the bench that to get faster results, it was sending samples to 23 labs — 13 private and 10 public sector — in the capital and not to Noida.
The state government placed before the bench an order issued by the Health and Family Department that said the notification in this regard had been extended by two weeks so that samples be sent within the capital instead of National Institute of Biologicals in Noida, where the testing process was slow leading to increase in pendency.
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