The Supreme
Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre on a
Public Interest Litigation seeking immediate steps
for proper screening of international flyers coming
to India from Ebola virus-affected countries to
prevent the deadly virus from spreading.
A bench of Chief Justice R M Lodha, justices
Kurian Joseph and R F Nariman also issued
notice to ministries of Health, Home Affairs, Civil
Aviation and External Affairs and the governments
of Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and
West Bengal and sought their response on the PIL
filed by an advocate.
The petition by advocate Vineet Dhanda sought
the court's direction to the Centre and state
governments to take adequate steps to prevent
the deadly epidemic of Ebola Virus Disease from
spreading.
It sought the government "to ensure proper
facilities at the airports to isolate and cure the
possibly infected travellers to avoid infection to
other citizens and patients".
The petition said that the government and other
ministries should spread the information regarding
the virus throughout the country to create more
awareness about it. According to the World
Health Organisation, EVD, formerly known as
Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal
illness in humans. Its fatality rate is up to 90 per
cent and EVD outbreaks occur primarily in remote
villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical
rain forests.
The virus is transmitted to people from wild
animals and spreads in the human population
through human-to-human transmission. Fruit
bats of the Pteropodidae family are considered to
be the natural host of the virus, as per the WHO.
The petition said that WHO has declared
international emergency regarding EVD as 1,500
people have died so far across the world.
"International passengers are travelling to India
from these Ebola-affected nations and no check
whatsoever is being done by the government
authorities to properly screen the passengers of
possible virus infection," it said.