Private medical practitioners in the city can now run tests to confirm dengue within seven hours completely free of charge.
As on Monday, there were 98 cases of dengue in the city for the year.
As many as 12,000 private medical practitioners in the city will now send samples to King Institute of Preventive Medicine for confirmation. The current practice by private hospitals is to send the sample to private laboratories for testing. This leads to delays in confirming diagnosis and starting treatment, doctors said.
On Monday, officials of King Institute of Preventive Medicine, at the doctors’ coordination and orientation meeting organised by the Chennai Corporation, offered the services of their laboratory.
“If you send samples by 9 a.m. with a laboratory request form, the results will be informed by 4 p.m. The samples should preferably be serum in cold chain, ice pack, with contact numbers of the patient, doctor and the hospital,” said an institute official. At present, if samples are sent to the King Institute after 12 p.m., the reports will be available only the next day.
Officials are working on a system to generate reports the same day.
The Corporation and King Institute will develop more such efficient systems to cope with dengue.
Special counters to disseminate information on traditional medicines for dengue will be set up by the Corporation on the King Institute’s premises.
“The Corporation will liaise with private doctors to provide traditional medicines for dengue,” said Mayor Saidai Duraisamy.
City Health Officer P.Kuganantham on Monday asked all medical practitioners in the city to collect the addresses of all patients with fever. “Hospitals should have mosquito nets for patients, and remove biomedical waste on the premises immediately,” he added.
