Dengue can now be detected in an hour

By Dilanthi Jayamanne

Sri Lanka is now equipped to diagnose dengue patients within one hour. The spokesman for the Health Ministry said yesterday that the South Korean government had donated medical equipment worth Rs. 2.5 million to the Dengue Surveillance Project (DSP) conducted by the Epidemiology Unit.

The spokesman said that the equipment known as the Dengue Combo Test Machine was capable of testing antigens and antibodies simultaneously. Earlier, doctors had to order a full blood count test to diagnose the mosquito borne disease. Doctors received test results 48 hours later, he said.

The Dengue Combo Test only take one hour and the patient could be diagnosed within a little over 60 minutes, the spokesman said.

The DSP is a project funded by the European Union which has provided 800,000 Euros for it.

Meanwhile, the number of dengue patients from the beginning of January to date totaled 18,111 while the highest number of dengue cases had been reported from Colombo (4,865), Gampaha (2,915) , Kegalle (1,689), Ratnapura (1,425), Kurunegala (1,287) and Kalutara (1,024) within the same period.