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ILS certificate not essential to carry out microscopic agglutination test (MAT): Dr. Lilani Karunanayake
The Medical Research Institute (MRI) has sent a second response to the reply of Dr. Suneth Agampodi following its first response titled, ‘Research on leptospirosis was carried out as early as 1971: MRI’ in the Sunday Times of May 11.
MRI’s Head, Reference Laboratory for the Diagnosis of Leptospirosis ,and Consultant Clinical Microbiologist, Dr. Lilani Karunanayake responds to two points that Dr. Agampodi has made:
The two points are – that the test offered by the MRI lacks International MAT proficiency from the International Leptospirosis Society (ILS) to do MAT testing and that research conducted at the MRI is not published in high impact factor journals.
Dr. Karunanayake’s response is:
- The ILS proficiency certificate is not an essential requirement to carry out MAT. The WHO reference standards and methods, which we follow, are accepted as valid internationally.
- Dr. P. Vijayachari, Director, Regional Medical Research Centre and Head, WHO Collaborating Centre for Diagnosis, Research, Reference and Training in Leptospirosis, Port Blair, Andaman Islands, India supports the MRI with training, providing reference cultures and inter-laboratory comparison of testing. He has visited the MRI laboratory for monitoring and graded it as one of the best in the region in the performance and quality of the MAT test. I believe that my training under Dr. Vijayachari is more than sufficient to carry out clinical and research work and for developing guidelines for the diagnosis and prevention of leptospirosis in Sri Lanka.
- The research carried out by the MRI is used exclusively for the benefit of the public, not for publication in foreign countries. The selection of the serovar panel for MAT and the validation of ELISA are based on our research. The results of our research will be known first to the Ministry of Health for the development of policy and guidelines and not for the international community or to high impact factor journals.
-Regarding the early diagnostic facilities, the establishment of clinician-friendly molecular diagnostic methods for leptospirosis is underway.
- We are developing clinical guidelines for Sri Lanka and it is based on local research, surveillance data and the experiences of local experts. Regional countries like Malaysia and Philippines have their own clinical guidelines.