Rajasthan High Court: In relation to a petition filed raising certain issues along with an expert committee report submitted on 11-11-2021 bringing into light issues pertaining to shortage of manpower in all blood banks across the State of Rajasthan and thus, the sensitive equipment is not being put to proper use, a Division Bench of Kuldeep Mathur and Sandeep Mehta, JJ. directed Medical and Health Department, Government of Rajasthan to ensure that proper medical and technical staff wherever required is selected and appointed in the blood banks across the State of Rajasthan at the earliest and as far as possible within the next six months.
What is an ELISA IV Test?
An ELISA also known as an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, finds and quantifies antibodies in your blood. You can use this test to find out if you have antibodies for specific infectious diseases. Your body makes antibodies, which are proteins, in reaction to dangerous chemicals known as antigens. Lyme disease, pernicious anaemia, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, rotavirus, squamous cell carcinoma, syphilis, toxoplasmosis, varicella-zoster virus, which causes chickenpox and shingles, and the Zika virus can all be detected using an ELISA test.
Submissions: Counsel for State submitted that the requisite testing facilities are available in all district headquarters and as per report NAT (nucleic acid test) is not mandatory in every blood bank and presently blood analysis through NAT is available at two centers in the State of Rajasthan.
It was further submitted that ELISA IV generation Test is universally acceptable is comprehensive in nature and State has approved the usage of this test in all the blood banks.
Directions: The Court on being apprised of the shortage of manpower in blood banks directed the State to fill the vacancies at the earliest and use ELISA IV test uniformly in all the blood banks/ centers.
[Rituraj Singh Rathore v. Principal Secretary, 2022 SCC OnLine Raj 1678, decided on 28-09-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
In person, for the Plaintiff;
Mukesh Rajpurohit, DSG and Pankaj Sharma, AAG, for the Defendant.
*Arunima Bose, Editorial Assistant has put this report together.