Summary:
KOCHI: A man whose legs got paralyzed after he took anti-rabies vaccine following a dog bite at the age of 35 has approached the Kerala high court seeking contempt of court action against state health officials who denied treatment to him despite a court order in 2015. As a reaction to the vaccine, both his legs got paralyzed.Though he filed a suit against the doctor alleging negligence, a court dismissed it by holding that the vaccine administered could generate such a reaction in exceptional cases. The man is now aged 63.V Lakshmanan, of Ekkal in Kannur , was biting by a mad do on October 14, 1983, and was administered an anti-rabies vaccine for 13 days when he went to a local primary health centre. However, the high court issued an order on December 8, 2015, to provide medical care free of cost to the petitioner.In the contempt petition, it is alleged that Kannur district medical officer (DMO) Narayanan Nayak has committed contempt of court by not giving directions to officers under him to provide medical treatment free of cost to the petitioner as directed in the 2015 judgment.When a copy of the high court’s judgment was handed over to the DMO, some minor treatments were allowed for some time but that too stopped since October 2017, the contempt plea filed through advocate Sherry J Thomas said..