Delhi HC asks Kejriwal govt & ICMR for explanation on 'no asymptomatic contact tests' rule

Delhi High Court on Monday sought an explanation from the Delhi government and the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) on the NCT government's decision to exclude asymptomatic direct contacts of confirmed cases from COVID-19 testing. 

The notice has been issued and case will come up now on June 22.

The PIL had been filed in the Delhi High Court to "ensure testing of asymptomatic and presymptomatic cases of COVID-19 to control the spread of the pandemic". It prays for the Delhi government's office order dated June 2, 2020, to be set aside or quashed.

The Delhi government's order 

The Delhi government vide office order dated June 2, 2020, has deliberately excluded the asymptomatic and pre-symptom patients from getting testing done in laboratories in Delhi. They have directed private testing laboratories to stop testing asymptomatic patients. By not allowing the asymptomatic patients to undergo testing, it means the asymptomatic patient will not get proper treatment.

The PIL, which has been drawn by Ketaki Goswami and Shubhangini Jain, states that intensive testing is the need of the hour for the following reasons :

i) "With no vaccine in sight and no recognised method of treatment, testing and isolating is an effective and crucial method to prevent spread of infection and measuring progression of the epidemic".

ii) "Large scale testing is necessary to prevent overburdening of the healthcare system and protecting the front line workers."

iii) "Social distancing and restrictions on economic activities are ineffective without extensive testing and contract tracing".

iv) "Testing is central to any strategy to ease confinement restrictions and reopen economic activities to alleviate economic suffering of people and revitalise economy ."

v) "Suppression of new wave or relapse of cases can be prevented by extensive testing."

The PIL in the Delhi High Court is filed by a septuagenarian citizen, Renu Goswami, who falls in the 'High risk' category in the ongoing pandemic. She suffers from Coronary Arterial Diseases and Hypertension. The PIL is filed for health and safety of public at the grave actions of the Delhi Government.

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Earlier Position

Under earlier rules, anyone who wanted to get tested and had a doctor’s prescription could be tested.

However, under the impugned June 2 order, the Delhi Government has told laboratories they cannot test asymptomatic persons. 

This means if citizens are worried they might have contacted the disease they have to develop symptoms like a fever first, then go through the laborious process of finding a doctor to write a prescription case and, then they can be tested.

The PIL by Renu Goswami asks why Delhi government has opted to reduce the testing capacity. 

The Arguments made on June 8, 2020, in the Delhi High Court by the petitioner's lawyer Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra were -  

•    The office order dated 02.06.2020 is contrary to ICMR testing strategy dated 18.05.2020 in as much as it excludes asymptomatic direct contacts of a confirmed case from testing. 

• High-risk case direct contact testing of confirmed cases is limited to only diabetic, hypertension and cancer patients, and senior citizens. 

•    If asymptomatic cases are not tested then many patients requiring immediate attention like pregnant women, kidney patients (dialysis) will not get admission (as admission is not given without testing). For example, in case a pregnant woman needs any medical attention then she will first have to undergo COVID-19 tests (to prevent infection from her to other patients); however if she denied tests due to being asymptomatic then the woman will not be able to get the medical attention necessary for her and the baby’s health. 

•    Admitting patients without testing will also lead to cross-infection. 

•    Office order does not take into account the importance of testing highlighted by ICMR, WHO and OECD. 

•    Private labs have also been simultaneously banned from testing which as per reports conduct nearly 4000 tests a day. 

•    WHO's “Find, isolate, test and treat” formula is to be followed. 

•    There has been an increase in the number of cases of COVID-19 in Delhi and without testing the cases will further increase. 

•    Testing of asymptomatic cases is necessary for contract tracing (for e.g. if a confirmed case has come in contact with professional colleagues and some colleagues are asymptomatic, they will spread further infection if not tested, traced and isolated.)

If the current position of the Delhi government is that asymptomatic cases won't be tested, and with the latest update on Delhi CM's health coming in, one can only wonder how he will be tested.

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