The health department circular asks private hospitals not to declare deaths without compulsory tests.
The state health department on Tuesday issued a circular making it compulsory for all government and private hospitals to report, both suspected cases of vector-borne diseases like the dengue and also deaths due to such attacks.
“The hospitals are directed to report to the district surveillance officers (BBMP chief health officer in case of Bangalore). And no private hospital should declare deaths without getting confirmation by the Sentinel labs established at various parts of the state,” said a senior official from the health department.
He added that 14 such laboratories already exist in the state and two more would be set up soon.
Officials from the health department said that private hospitals should not declare deaths just on the basis of some of the rapid tests conducted in their own labs.
“According to the World Health Organisation, dengue cases can be confirmed only by Enzyme-Linked Immuno-Sorbent Assay (ELISA). Very few hospitals in the city and elsewhere have this facility and hence the circular directs the hospitals to declare deaths after confirming from government labs where ELISA is available,” said another officer.
Another officer from the department said that there were three types of dengue — common dengue, dengue hemorrhagic and dengue shock syndrome. “Also, in case of dengue hemorrhagic, the private hospitals should not neglect reporting to the government,” he said.
The health department would compile suspected and death cases of dengue and prepare daily and weekly reports. “Depending on the trend and location of the disease spread, we will be able to tackle the disease in a better way,” he said.
Officials said that the circular also directed the private hospitals not to use unauthorised testing kits for dengue samples test.
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