City Police to decide this evening

Mysore/Mysuru: Amidst growing concern about the risk that breathalysers — used to detect the concentration of alcohol in a person’s blood — pose to public health amid a new coronavirus epidemic that the WHO considers to be a global emergency, the Mysuru City Police will take a call today whether to use breathalysers for their routine drunken-driving checks every night. 

A meeting has been called by City Police Commissioner Dr. Chandragupta this evening that will be attended by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime and Traffic) B.T. Kavitha, Traffic ACP Sandesh Kumar and other officials. The meeting will take a call on whether to temporarily withdraw the breathalyser test on city roads. 

Confirming this to Star of Mysore this morning, Commissioner Dr. Chandragupta said that the he was aware of Coronavirus scare and has heard of appeals in other cities to suspend the use of breathalysers for some time to prevent potential spread of any infection.

So far, India’s only coronavirus cases (three) have been reported in Kerala, but health-conscious citizens and experts say as part of general precautions, it makes sense to temporarily stop random breathalyser tests, the traffic Police’s main method to curb drunken driving. 

One blows air into the mouthpiece of the breathalyser, which then detects blood alcohol content. The same device is used multiple times during traffic checks. As the virus is feared to spread through coughing or sneezing, the use of breathalysers under such circumstances can be highly unhygienic and one of the ways for the virus to spread from person to person.

Doctors say that the risk of getting infected through a breathalyser is high as the virus is concentrated in one place. If an infected person blows into the unit and minutes later another person blows in, the chances of acquiring the virus is high, they say.