Amidst the Black Fungus spreading at an alarming rate across Telangana, a lawyer approached the Telangana High Court on May 24, seeking immediate steps in this matter. The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition, filed by Lawyer T. Jayant Jaisoorya, sought the State government to call for global emergency tenders to procure drugs.
The lawyer has also requested the HC to instruct the Union of India to increase the allocation of life-saving drugs to the State, including Liposomal Amphotericin-B, which are used to treat patients affected by Black Fungus.
Mucormycosis, known as Black Fungus, is a serious fungal infection caused by a group of molds known as micromycetes.
Since the State has witnessed a sudden surge in the number of cases, the Telangana government declared Black Fungus as a notifiable disease under the Epidemic Act-1897 five days ago.
The state government’s measures are inadequate and this unconstitutional and amount to a violation of the Right to Life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, the lawyer, pointed out in his plea. He also maintained that there was no proper system of reporting Black Fungus cases in the State and due to this, the centre is allocating the State a limited amount of drugs.
As per the procedure of the state government, a committee headed by the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) has to recommend the allocation of the drug to the patient. The lawyer, however, said that there is no system to track the status of the patients and such delay is likely to be resulted in irreparable damage to patients.
According to The Hindu report, the petitioner said that 160 out of 200 beds in ENT hospital of Koti are being occupied by patients affected by Black Fungus.
Earlier on May 15, a division bench of the HC headed by Chief Justice Hima Kohli had passed an order to the State government to explain how well it was prepared to tackle Black Fungus.
