Mumbai: The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court of Justices Sunil Shukre and Avinash Gharote on Wednesday ordered the Central government and Maharashtra government to consider the situation of Mucormycosis aka Black Fungus akin to a war, and respond to it as quickly as possible. The bench, while hearing a clutch of petitions pertaining to COVID-19 crisis, even said the central government has not acted up to the mark in dealing with the black fungus issue.
Pursuant to orders passed in the last hearing, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) filed an affidavit before the bench apprising it of the prevailing situation owing to black fungus. The affidavit, apart from suggesting measures to fight the fungus stated that there was a serious shortfall of Amphotericin-B, the drug considered to be the first line treatment for black fungus.
The bench noted that to increase the production of the essential drug, the authorities are required to import the raw material used to produce the drug, as early as possible.
Additional Solicitor General U M Aurangabadkar for the Union told the judges that effective steps have been taken in this regard. "If effective steps are taken by the Central government for their import, it would amount to valuable service rendered to Indian Society. After all, such invaders; fungii are the invaders; require speedy action and they do not wait for anybody to respond to them. The response to be given in such situations is akin to a response given in a war like situation," Justice Shukre said.
"Unless quick action is taken, destruction is inevitable and it is with this view and such concern that we urge the Central government and the state to take immediate steps for increasing the production capacity," the bench added.
The IMA's affidavit further stated that in Nagpur city there are a total of 1584 cases of Black Fungus (as on May 29) and out of these a total of 830 patients have undergone a surgery. It further stated that over 74 eyes have been removed while 69 persons have succumbed to the fungal infection.
"These are extremely alarming figures and it appears from these figures that in Nagpur city the fungal infection is no longer rare but it has already become common, and it has assumed a form of an epidemic," the judges noted.
The bench further said that citizens must follow the SOPs issued with regards to black fungus disease such as maintaining personal hygiene, good health, regulated blood sugar levels etc.
The judges during the hearing, perused a note submitted by ASG Aurangabadkar and noted that it didn't mention any significant step taken by the central government after the last hearing. The note mentioned the allocation of Amphotericin-B to all the states including Maharashtra.
"It is not known as to how many and how these allocations have been made, whether randomly or by considering the case load in Maharashtra," the judges said. The judges further said that whatever formula was adopted for making allocations, the fact remains that Maharashtra and in particular Nagpur having very high prevalence of the infection remain in crying state for Amphotericin B.
"Despite having so many patients in the state, major part of it is in Nagpur, patients are not getting enough number of vials per day for the treatment because of deficit allocation and short supply of the drug to Maharashtra. Many patients have lost some or the other organ of their body, many patients have even lost their eyes and a sizable number of patients is dead," the judges said.
"This is a situation which can be improved if there is sensible allocation of the drug to Maharashtra. This is already known to the Central government. But, the steps that it has to take or it must take, considering the fundamental duty of the state and also the concept of welfare state in the Directive Principles of State Policy, the response appears to be not on the expected lines," the judges remarked.
The bench, however, clarified that it isn't saying that no steps at all have been taken by the centre.
"We reiterate that as the patients are losing lives due to these dreaded infections, urgent steps and urgent relief are required. This is a sort of war like situation for Maharashtra, which calls for rapid response. We hope that these entreaties would be positively answered by the central government and if not, further loss of lives of a few more patients, unfortunate as it may be, may be a fait accompli,” noted the bench.
