Staff Reporter :
The High Court on Thursday wanted to know the steps taken by the government to prevent an outbreak of coronavirus in the country.
Health Secretary and Director General of the Directorate of General Health Services (DGHS) have been asked to submit a report in the court in this regard by next Monday (March 9).
The HC Bench of Justice FRM Nazmul Ahasan and Justice KM Kamrul Kader passed the order, including three directives, on a Suo Moto move following a report published in a Bangla dialy on Thursday on the risk of coronavirus outbreak in the country.
Later Deputy Attorney General ABM Abdullah Al Mahmud Bashar said, “A Supreme Court lawyer brought a published report to the attention of the court that said Bangladesh was in risk of coronavirus outbreak. Then the court passed three directives verbally upon the Health Ministry and the Directorate of General of Health Services.”
The court wanted to know from the respondents if the government had provided adequate equipment to all the air, land and sea ports in the country to test the people who were entering the country from abroad to prevent coronavirus outbreak. If the persons were competent to test the people and the machineries fit for test, the court also wanted to know.
It ordered the government to preserve cabins in the government hospitals for the coronavirus affected patients and to take initiatives so that the private hospital authorities also preserve the cabins for the same reason.
The court ordered the government to import machineries to identify the coronavirus affected people on an emergency basis if these are not available in the country.
The DGHS DG has also been asked to inform the court on whether the government has taken steps to spread awareness among people on the virus.
The court asked Deputy Attorney General Abdullah-Al-Mahmud Bashar to gather the report from the government bodies and submit it in the court by Monday.
Advocate Ishrat Hasan, a lawyer of the Supreme Court, placed the newspaper report before the HC bench for necessary order.
