In a bid to accentuate upon the rising menace of dengue and Chikungunya and to accelerate the health paraphernalia to check the virus in its early stages, Punjab Health and Family Welfare department on Friday issued set of fresh guidelines to the Indian Medical Association and all private practitioners to report any suspected/confirmed dengue cases to the health department immediately, so that remedial measures could be taken without any delay. 

Stating this on Thursday, Health and Family Welfare Director Rajiv Bhalla said that the instructions to the IMA, Punjab and all private hospital as private practitioners across the state have been issued on the direction of Health and Family Welfare Minister Brahm Mohindra.He said that it has now been made mandatory that all suspected/confirmed cases of dengue should be timely reported to Health department so that remedial measures are undertaken for prevention and spread of dengue in the affected area. 

Giving details about the testing process of the suspected patients at the government hospitals, he said that patients tested with RDKs (Rapid Diagnostic Kits) would not be declared as a confirmed case as it is not recommended test. All samples should be sent for ELISA test (free of cost) to District Hospitals for confirmation.He said that private hospitals can log on to www.punjabnvbdcp.in and submit the case details online and patients should be managed as per central government guidelines available on www.punjabnvbdcp.in. As per the advisory patients if not bleeding or not having platelets less than 20000 may not be administered platelets but it must be checked that unnecessary scare should not be spread. He said that Dengue is a notified disease and it is mandatory for every hospital and lab to inform the department about a case of dengue and chikungunya. He said that for any further information, the mobile app "Dengue Free Punjab" can be downloaded free of cost from Google play store.