Zika Virus

Poster Presentation
@ School of Medical laboratory Technologist
Medical Research Institute, Colombo _ Sri Lanka

"Jana Asuna" Round - 3, Summary

What is FREEDOM

Jana Asuna - Disaster Management and Meeriyabadda Land Slide

Private Medical College and Right of Education

Published on Feb 1, 2016

The Sri Lanka Medical Council

The Sri Lanka Medical Council was established by the Medical (Amendment) Act No. 40 of 1998 when the title was substituted for the Ceylon Medical Council. The Ceylon Medical Council (CMC) was established by the Medical Council Ordinance No. 24 of 1924. The first meeting of the CMC was held on 22nd June 1925 at 3.00 p.m. in the Colombo Medical Library, chaired by the first president, Dr. N. Duncan Walker.

Registration of Practitioners

One of the chief functions of the Council is to register practitioners engaged in providing healthcare. The Colombo Medical College was opened in June 1870 and admitted twenty five students. They were awarded a diploma of Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery (L.M.S.). In 1880, the College was named the Ceylon Medical College and the L.M.S. was registrable with the General Medical Council of Britain without further examinations.

The Medical Registration Ordinance was passed in 1905 and persons with L.M.S. (Ceylon) were recognized as medical practitioners and registered to practice medicine and surgery by the Ceylon Medical College Council (C.M.C.C.). Any person registered in a country which recognized this diploma was also registered.

In 1915, the Dentists Registration Ordinance was introduced to register dentists to practice dentistry. Following the establishment of the University of Ceylon by the University Ordinance of 1942, the M.B.B.S. degree and the B.D.S. degree awarded by it were recognized for registration in place of the L.M.S. and L.D.S. awarded by the College Council, respectively.

The Medical Ordinance No. 10 of 1949 makes provision for registration of nurses. The register of nurses has several parts, Part A for registration of Female General Nurses, Part B for Male General Nurses, Part C for Public Health Nurses, who should be registered as General Nurses and Midwives, Part D for Assistant Nurses, Part E for nurses who practiced for more than three years before the introduction of the amendment and Part F for nurses who qualified abroad and satisfied the Council that they possess the knowledge and skill to practice efficiently as a nurse.

The Medical (Amendment) Act No. 30 of 1987 makes provision for the registration of para-medical services. Persons who were included in this category are: Radiographers, Medical Laboratory Technologists, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Electrocardiograph Recordists, Audiologists, Clinical Physiologists, Speech Therapists, Chiropodists, Dieticians, Ophthalmic Auxiliaries and Clinical Psychologists.

The Medical (Amendment) Act No. 40 of 1998 makes provision for Radiographers, Medical Laboratory Technologists, Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists to be registered as professions supplementary to medicine, removing them from the category of Para-Medical Services.

The Medical (Amendment) Act No. 15 of 1996 makes provision for registration of citizens of Sri Lanka who have obtained a degree or diploma from a medical school outside Sri Lanka and recognized by the Council, to be registered if they were in employment of the Department of Health Services prior to May 17, 1991.

Powers of the Council

The Medical (Amendment) Act No. 30 of 1987 makes provision for the Council to enter and make inquiries at recognized universities and institutions to ascertain whether the courses of study, the degree of proficiency at examinations conducted for conferment of qualifications and staff, equipment and facilities provided at such universities and institutions conform to prescribed standards. If they fail to conform to prescribed standards, the council may recommend to the Minister to withdraw such recognition.

The general duty of the Council is to protect the public and uphold the reputation of the profession. The Council does this by maintaining and publishing registers of qualified persons in different categories to practice each discipline, by prescribing the standard of education and standard of medical education, providing advice on professional conduct and medical ethics and taking action against those who are registered with the council if it appears that they have become unfit to practice and exercise the privileges of registration.

Private Medical College Issue

Malabe Private Medical College

Medical Officer’s Trade Union (GMOA) and Medical
Students’ Union, have requested government to close down South Asia Institute
of Technology and Medicine (SAITM), the Green Campus, first private medical
university in Sri Lanka commonly known as Malabe Private Medical College.


Only Sri Lankan state universities have the monopoly to confer MBBS degrees.
But On September 2011, Higher Education Ministry has issued a Gazette
Notification giving authority to confer M.B.B.S. degrees to Malabe Private
Medical College.

The medical education regulatory body, the Sri Lanka
Medical Council (SLMC), does not recognize the private medical college and not
allowed the students to undergo clinical training in government hospitals. 

2011 September, Doctors of Sri Lanka have decided to
launch an island wide strike against the controversial Private Medical College
but later called it off after a discussion with the Health Minister and he has
agreed to appoint a five member committee to investigate about the issues.

Sri Lanka's former Health Minister Maithripala
Sirisena presented the report of the five-member committee, to the former President
Mahinda Rajapaksa on 22nd March this year.

The Medical College is a branch of a Russian
university and located in Malabe close to capital Colombo. The Malabe Private
Medical College was established in 2009 and students have to study 4 years.

Meanwhile several university students’ unions in Sri
Lanka are to launch joint action against establishing of private medical
college in the country and to pressurize the government to shut down the
private medical college in Malabe and to stop establishing private universities
in the country.

“Dengvaxia” World’s First Dengue Vaccine

The International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins University has developed several models to estimate the potential demand of dengue vaccine and the costs associated with dengue introduction programs, enabling vaccine suppliers, donors, and country-level stakeholders to make informed decisions about vaccine supply, financing, and adoption. These models have been developed with specific price and coverage assumptions for a variety of target ages and regions. 

The successful introduction of a vaccine in affected countries depends heavily on issues such as supply constraints, potential demand, and the impact of policy decisions on future demand and supply. Strategic demand forecasts (SDFs) play a central role in enabling vaccine suppliers, donors, and country-level stakeholders to make informed decisions about vaccine supply, financing, and adoption. In recent years, Accelerated Development and Introduction Plans (ADIPs) have used strategic demand forecasts to adjust market forces for the purpose of accelerating access to new vaccines in countries where they are needed the most.

For the next phase of this project, they will quantify the potential demand for dengue vaccines in Latin America, specifically México, Colombia, Honduras, Paraguay, El Salvador and Peru, taking into account the different scenarios envisioned by each country. Using advanced economic modeling, we aim to determine which factors would drive dengue vaccine demand in these countries.

Building off of the team’s current work on a similar model in Brazil, the team will develop SDF models in collaboration with the Ministries of Health in Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Paraguay, El Salvador and Peru. While they already have access to relevant information in some of the countries in the region, this collaborative work is essential to ensure that the outputs of the model are relevant and integrated in the decision-making process for each country of interest.

While strategic demand forecasts can be powerful communication tools, they have certain limitations. SDF depends on the availability of vital pieces of information from stakeholders, namely in-country policy makers, industry, and global donors. Getting information from one stakeholder can be hard without the ability to rely on credible information from other relevant players. All stakeholders must participate with equal commitment towards providing timely and accurate data for the results of strategic demand forecasts to be valid. The lack of reliable information can also make it difficult to verify or test key assumptions made by disease modelers.

In addition to the potential absence of consistent and reliable information, it can be challenging to generalize across developing countries. Significant differences in low- and middle-income countries can make operating conditions vastly divergent on the ground, thereby making broad-based assumptions and generalizations ineffective. Economic and political conditions – such as the unequal distribution of resources and infrastructure, limited budgets, inadequate health care policies, and divergent political priorities – can vary substantially between countries, even within the same sub-region.

Lastly, unequal financial commitment from international and local donors makes it difficult to determine the price funders would be willing and able to pay for a vaccine. This is an especially crucial piece of information for low-income countries, which would be unable to introduce a new vaccine without significant support from outside funders. Without this vital information it is challenging to estimate the potential demand for a vaccine in any given market.

Having fruitful discussions with highly positioned local stakeholders in each country including program heads, government officials and representatives at the national and state levels. Their response has surpassed our expectations: they are themselves working to engage new key actors in this discussion. Stakeholders are driven and committed to understanding this disease and to ensuring that a vaccine is introduced in the most efficient and beneficial way for every country.

This research will be critical for laying the groundwork so that countries in the Americas can establish a viable vaccine introduction plan, which can be immediately implemented following the introduction of a dengue vaccine.

Sri Lanka Society for Medical Laboratory science