Coronavirus challenge: Petitioner urges LHC to asks government to take 'appropriate' steps

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has been approached to direct the government to take appropriate measures including constitution of a medical board and keeping passengers coming from China in quarantine for a reasonable period, in view of the coronavirus outbreak in the neighbouring country.

Advocate Tariq Asad on Monday filed a petition through Advocate Abdullah Tahir and cited Federation of Pakistan through federal secretary Ministry of Interior, the prime minister through his principal secretary and the federal secretary of health as respondents.

Asad prayed before the court to constitute a high-level medical board comprising specialists in the field who are independent from political pressure to look into the matter and take necessary measures.

He also requested the court to issue directions for detaining any passenger landing at any airport in Pakistan from China directly or indirectly from other airports and keeping them in quarantine for a reasonable time until they were proven to be virus free.

The petitioner further prayed before the court to evacuate the Pakistani students or others from China only after they were proven to be virus free, and restrain the Pakistanis living in China, studying or doing any job, not to leave the country till further decision to be taken by the respondents.

He stated that the petition was motivated by the conviction that the coronavirus was spreading all over the world, but the respondents had not taken any considerable measures to remove the apprehensions and spread of the said virus.

The petitioner added that as a new coronavirus had spread in China and around the world; scientists were scrambling to find out exactly where it came from.

Now, a new study provides more clues to the virus' origins and points to bats as the most likely hosts.

Asad maintained that it was deplorable that despite emerging in humans only recently, the virus had already infected about 6,000 people and caused 132 deaths in China, while spreading to 15 other countries.

He added that most of the initial cases occurred in people who worked at or visited the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, China, where a variety of wild animals were sold.

Asad said that the study reveals that coronavirus was a very highly epidemic ailment which spread through the air by viral particles in droplets from a cough or sneeze. "Health workers and family members are also vulnerable to infection from close personal contact, while they are caring for patients with inadequate barrier protection (gloves, gown and surgical mask)," the petition states.