The government today issued a gazette enlisting coronavirus (Covid-19) as a communicable disease.

The Health and Family Welfare Ministry issued the circular as per the Communicable Diseases (Prevention, Control and Eradication) Act, 2018 on March 19 and a gazette in this regard was issued today.

However, the gazette would get retrospective effectiveness from March 8 this year, when the first case of coronavirus was detected.

On March 18, the High Court directed the government to issue a gazette notification within a day declaring coronavirus a communicable disease in the country.

The health secretary was asked to issue the gazette notification including the name of coronavirus in the list of communicable diseases under the Communicable Diseases (Prevention, Control and Eradication) Act, 2018, to tackle any emergency situation related to public health by checking and eradicating this contagious disease.

The bench of Justice Md Ashraful Kamal and Justice Sardar Md Rashed Jahangir came up with the order while hearing a writ petition filed by rights organisation Law and Life Foundation, seeking necessary orders.