New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday was surprised with the submission of Centre's counsel that Amphotericin B, one of the medicines used for treating Black Fungus was readily available in the market.
When the court said if the medicine was available in abundance there should not have been so many deaths, the counsel said people were not dying because of lack of medicines but the disease Black Fungus itself is dangerous.
Central government standing counsel Kirtiman Singh, replying to the remark of the court that nearly one-third people affected with Black Fungus have died, said people are not dying of lack of medicines otherwise there would have been a lot of noise and disturbance.
The submission did not go well with a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh, which said, "There is already a lot of noise and if you choose not to hear it, that is your choice."
However, during the hearing, the High Court expressed satisfaction over the guidelines issued by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) on possible treatment options for Black Fungus for which Liposomal Amphotericin B is the drug of choice and asked the expert body to review it on regular interval.
The court was informed that the criteria for prioritising patients for administering Liposomal Amphotericin B for treating mucormycosis (Black Fungus) are young patients and those in whom surgical debridement is not possible or incomplete.
The ICMR, in its latest guidelines, initially advised the use of Amphotericin B deoxy cholate' as the standard treatment while observing that it causes nephrotoxicity and also advised as to how it should be administered to reduce nephrotoxicity.
The court observed that on June 1 proceedings itself, it was informed by a senior government doctor that Liposomal Amphotericin B is the drug of choice to treat Black Fungus and asked the Centre's counsel to clarify the same.
Later, an ICMR scientist joined the proceedings and stated that either an amended guideline or addendum will be issued to indicate that this is framed in light of the shortage of Liposomal Amphotericin B and will be reviewed after every two weeks for three months.
The court went on to say that what it is trying to find out is in a scenario where there are only 100 vials available, was it more prudent to give every patient a partial dosage or give the maximum number of patients the full dosage.