The Sri Lanka Medical Association advised patients with fever to refrain from rushing to laboratories seeking blood tests without doctors’ advice neither should they pressurise doctors order these tests.

President of the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) Prof. Ravindra Fernando in a communique said on Monday that only a small minority would develop complications (dengue haemorrhaegic fever - DHF) between the fourth and seventh days. "A simple blood test (First Blood Count) done from the fourth day onwards (which may need repetition) will help the attending doctor to ascertain whether the patient is coming in for DHF or not," he said.

Fernando pointed out that the more expensive (Antibody /PCR tests) were "hardly necessary. Your attending doctor can decide on the need for this test only when the case is doubtful."

The President said that it was a common practice for patients when they got fever to request for laboratory tests in order to establish whether it was dengue or not. He claimed that these expensive tests were often carried out prematurely as a majority of people infected with dengue fever recovered spontaneously.

Meanwhile informed medical sources urged the Health Ministry to implement a decision taken by Cabinet in 2002 to establish a Vector Borne Disease Control Unit (VBDU) within the Health Ministry.

"As it is there are separate campaigns to fight malaria, dengue, Japanese encephalitis and filariasis," they said.

A Director should be appointed for a special unit to combat vector borne diseases.

"All four of these diseases are mosquito borne," they pointed out claiming that such a step taken by the Health Ministry — as it had the sanction of the Cabinet, would be cost effective while all programmes would receive adequate funding and equal attention." (DJ)