Corona scare: Haryana min says adequate arrangements made

Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij informed the state assembly on Tuesday that authorities have made adequate arrangements to deal with any emergent situation in the wake of coronavirus outbreak.

The issue cropped up during Zero Hour in the assembly when Congress MLA Geeta Bhukkal sought to know if it was safe to use the tablets given to all legislators by the government last week. The tablets had been imported from Wuhan in China, the epicentre of the outbreak.

Notably, the Haryana Budget presented on Friday had a bonanza for every MLA this time -- a computer tablet that held the entire document for them to read.

Congress MLA Varun Chaudhary had, however, expressed concern that the tablets could "spread" coronavirus.

In addition to the tablets, the legislators were on Tuesday given laptops, as the treasury benches told the opposition legislators in a lighter vein that these were "made in India".

Meanwhile, Congress members joined party MLA Geeta Bhukkal when she sought an assurance from the government that the tablets given to the legislators were safe to use.

Vij replied that since various agencies of the central government were monitoring all aspects of the virus and there was no evidence yet that non-living objects too act as "carriers", hence, there was no need to panic while using these tablets.

The minister also informed the House that there were 943 persons with China travel history in the state who had been examined and were found to be uninfected and healthy.

"Of them, 15 had been kept in isolation wards in hospitals and their samples sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune. The reports of all the 15 have been found negative," he said.

In a lighter vein, Vij went on to remind the assembly that he was convinced that the ancient Indian way of "Namaste" to greet each other with folded hands was the safest way to avoid infections and break the chain of such viruses.

Indian National Lok Dal MLA Abhay Singh Chautala raised concern on prices and availability of drugs in the wake of coronavirus outbreak in China.