Kerala HC issues notice on state govt's plea against order on capping COVID-19 test cost

After a single-judge bench of the Kerala High Court allowed pleas against the state government's decision to cap the COVID-19 RT-PCR test cost, the latter filed an appeal.

 On 4 October, Justice TR Ravi kept in abeyance the Government Order mandating a reduction in the price of a COVID-19 test from Rs.1700 to Rs.500 in private labs. The order stated, "The State was obliged to discuss the matter with private laboratories. The GO issued without conducting a discussion with the private laboratories and that too in a matter in which they are seriously affected cannot be legally sustained". 

Moreover, Justice Ravi directed the state government to take a fresh decision regarding the RT-PCR test cost within a period of three weeks after holding discussions with the representatives of private labs. The petitioners had argued that the Government Order was issued in violation of the Supreme Court and the The Indian Council of Medical Research's directives. On Wednesday, a division bench of the HC comprising Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice Shaji P Chaly issued notice on the Kerala government's appeal against the single-judge bench's order dated 4 October. 

COVID-19 situation in India

At present, there are 1,48,922 active novel coronavirus cases in India whereas 3,37,24,959 patients have recovered and 4,59,873 deaths have been reported. The improvement in India's COVID-19 situation has been attributed to the rapid progress in vaccination. The country's vaccine drive against COVID-19 commenced on 16 January with healthcare workers getting inoculated in the first phase. This was opened up to frontline workers on 2 February while those aged above 60 and above 45 with co-morbidities became eligible for vaccination from 1 March.

While everyone aged above 45 could get vaccinated from 1 April, all adults were added to the vaccination coverage category on 1 May. In a huge achievement, India completed administering one crore novel coronavirus vaccine doses on October 21. Apart from Covishield and Covaxin, the Drugs Controller General of India has approved Sputnik V, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson's Janssen vaccine, and Zydus Cadila's ZyCoV-D.

As per sources, at least 75% of India's eligible adult population has been administered at least one dose of the vaccine while nearly 31% have got jabbed twice. Uttar Pradesh leads in the number of doses administered in India followed by Maharashtra, West Bengal, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. A total of 73,95,12,093 persons have been inoculated whereas 33,79,68,395 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too.