Congratulations to members of the Duke-Ruhuna Research Collaborative for winning the 2021 President’s Award for Scientific Research, presented in Colombo, Sri Lanka on April 6.
The paper, Evaluation of the WHO 2009 classification for diagnosis of acute dengue in a large cohort of adults and children in Sri Lanka during a dengue-1 epidemic, which was published in 2018 in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, was honored as one of the top twenty research publications at the ceremony. The article reviews and examines the WHO’s 2009 revisions to the diagnostic criteria for dengue.
Because dengue and other acute febrile illnesses often look similar, it is important for clinicians to quickly and accurately identify the cause of a patient’s illness. With early detection and treatment, severe dengue outcomes can be improved. The Collaborative’s work highlighted the high sensitivity and low specificity of the WHO’s 2009 classification system and reiterated the importance of the treating physician’s clinical evaluation. The full article can be found here.