Business Health

Business community to combat HIV/AIDS

Ganga Pradeepa

US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert O'Blake addressed the Sri Lankan Business Federation on HIV/AIDS, announcing its growing membership and commitment to its first target of educating commercial sector employees on HIV/AIDS.

Over 35 multinationals, have aligned themselves to this business federation which is committed in bringing together the Government, the business community and the civil society in the national response to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

"Indeed, HIV/AIDS has had a profoundly negative social and economic impact on countries in every part of the world, including my own. Here in Sri Lanka, issues such as the ongoing conflict, poverty and high levels of unemployment among women put not only the health of its victims at risk, but also the social and economic fabric of society," O'Blake said.

"The private sector brings unparalleled skills, technical know-how, and understanding of communication products, marketing and selling of products and services, and valuable knowledge to reach and change opinions of large numbers of people, employees, and families.

If the Government, private sector and development organisations work collaboratively in order to improve health service delivery and increase coordination of HIV prevention efforts within the community, we can go a long way in keeping the scourge of HIV/AIDS off the shores of Sri Lanka," he added.

"The Global Fund recently gave 1.9 million dollars for the prevention of HIV to the Sri Lankan Government for education on the virus which covers the plantation sector.

They have already selected Advanced Level students in ten different districts to participate in awareness programs on HIV/AIDS," said Director of the National STD/AIDS programme Dr. Nimal Edirisinghe to Daily News Business.

In Sri Lanka 930 individuals have been currently detected as being HIV positive, but the estimated figure is around 3500-4000. Forty two per cent of the victims in these cases are female and 80 per cent of them have been infected by their spouses.

"These are statistics that could have been avoided if timely awareness and education were provided. The mission taken on by this federation is most welcome to support the nations response to HIV/AIDS," he added.

CEO of Standard Chartered bank Clive Haswell said there have been many individual efforts made by business in response to the epidemic, but this is not enough. "Partnering the national response, HIV/AIDS needs to be an essential component of the way in which every company operates.

Isolated centres of expertise, resources and material are available within the business sector, but there is a lack of engagement of corporates and access to existing resources and best practices. There is a critical need for an entity to bring together civil society, NGOs and the corporate sector. It is our hope that the Business Coalition will fill this gap," he said.

Imperial Institute students make a donation to Cancer Hospital

Third year BSc (Hons) Business Management degree students of Imperial Institute of Higher Education donated drugs, devices, equipment other necessary goods to the National Cancer Hospital recently.

These students raised the money from a business-like entrepreneurial assignment they engaged in, which was titled "Seminar in Marketing." This was a part of their internal degree on BSc (Hons) Business Management from University of Wales, UK.

This module is structured in a manner where a group of students have to establish and register a company and follow the complete process of conceptualization, idea generation, production, launching and marketing of a product.

The group that made the contribution to the hospital called themselves "Swift Solutions" and launched an interactive CD and a series of corporate training workshops together with Toastmasters Association of Sri Lanka.

Swift Solutions consisted of students, Shehan Mendis, Varuni Fernando, Nadina Fernando, Gunith de Silva, Yahya Galeley and Hisham Hussain. Together with renowned toastmasters, they conducted corporate training workshops for many executives and marketed the CDs as well.

The formal launch of Swift Solutions was held at Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Colombo. As per module requirements the company accounts were audited by Chartered Accountants and the profit was to be donated to charity.

Swift solutions decided to donate their profits to National Cancer Hospital, Maharagama. The goods donated included walkers, DVD players, anti-cancer drugs, injections and vitamins that are given to patients after chemotherapy.

The students donated these goods to Dr. Kanishka Karunaratne, Director, National Cancer Institute. Accepting the donation Dr. Karunaratne said, "We appreciate what these young students have done; it shows that they are conscious of the needs of the society from a very young age.

This awareness will lead them to become caring and mindful citizens and responsible professionals once they enter the corporate field,".

Durdans Hospital launches Molecular Diagnostic laboratory

Durdans Hospital recently added a state of the art ultra modern Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory into its extensive portfolio of services, giving Sri Lankans the assurance of accuracy, quality and highly specific world class diagnostic methods to help in the diagnosis of infectious, genetic diseases and metabolic disorders.

The laboratory is equipped with Real Time Thermal Cyclers, and other state of the art equipment required for molecular diagnosis. By using specific nucleic acid-based PCR tests, clinicians will be assisted to diagnose diseases accurately with minimum turnaround time.

The methods are highly specific and sensitive in comparison with conventional methods.

The laboratory is supervised by qualified Consultant Molecular Biologists. Durdans currently has a qualitative test menu for DNA/RNA based detection of Dengue, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Cytomegalovirus, Chikungunya etc.

Although these tests can be performed using less sensitive time consuming conventional methods, what is unique about the DNA/RNA based methods we use are high sensitivity, specificity and shorter turnaround times (just 24 to 48 hours) which is crucial in diagnosis and treatment," says one of the Consultant Molecular Biologists, Dr. Nilmini Gunewardene.

"Another special feature of the Durdans Molecular Laboratory is the ability to perform quantitative testing (viral load) by Real Time PCR for Hepatitis B,C, Cytomegalovirus and Human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV)," added Dr. A. Manamperi, another Consultant Molecular Biologist on the team.

She further explained, "There is no compromise on the quality assurance of testing as every test is carried out using proper protocols and control standards with state of the art equipment and high quality molecular biology reagents and therefore the patient could be assured of high standards of quality in test results."

The other Consultant Molecular Biologists on board in a supervisory capacity are Dr. Jagath Weerasena, Dr. Ranil Dassanayake and Dr. N.V. Chandrasekharan.

"Molecular techniques go directly into the genes of the pathogen which makes its identity more definitive," explains Dr. Jagath Weerasena. "The conventional methods are not as sensitive, specific or rapid as the nucleic acid based assays" he further explains.

He takes an example of TB culture which would normally take about four to six weeks for test results to be released, but molecular diagnosis would take just 24 to 48 hours.

Dr. Ranil Dassanayake comments "As molecular diagnosis is more sensitive and rapid, Doctor need not wait as in the case of the conventional methods for intervention. This is very helpful in dengue for instance because treatment can begin very early."

"What we see in these testing methods is an exponential amplification of parts of the original genetic material, which increases the sensitivity of detection, says Dr. N.V. Chandrasekharan.

We can also detect different strains of the infectious agents, which is important for therapeutic decision making and in cases like Hepatitis B and C the duration of the treatment and response to the drug depend on the strain.

The ergonomically designed custom built laboratory has designed according to international standards to eliminate contamination and maintain high standards of quality of testing.