Bodhi Dhanapala, Quebec, Canada.

Tilak S. Fernando  has written to the Lankaweb (18/06/17) claiming that Dengue fever can be cured using homeopathic medicine. Not so long ago we had people who were also writing letters claiming that drinking the juice of Papaw leaves (Gaslabu” leaves) will cure those who are suffering from Dengaue, a dangerous  hemorrhagic viral fever that we all know about. The disease is transmitted by Dengue mosquitoes, and most people in Sri Lanka today have have some bites from Dengue  mosquitoes, and have the virus and  in their blood. That is, you can get dengue, but it does not carry through to become the full hemorrhagic state and the body cures itself. Common cold and influence are also viral diseases, and the body usually recovers from them.  It is when the viral infection develops fast, and spreads so rapidly in the body that virus overcomes the body defences that we get into the acute stage of hemorrhagic fever. At this stage, if the fever is not managed correctly, and rapidly by experienced physicians who have the equipment to monitor the body fluids and organs and  adjust the treatment strategy rapidly, the patient succumbs.

While it is true that there is some evidence that the platelet count in the blood improves when Papaw-leaf juice is administered to a patient, that is hardly enough to combat a rapidly moving Dengue infection. Paw-leaf juice usage fell into disrepute in India when many people died, and especially when a well-known  Hindi film actor died when he took papaw-leaf juice in attempting to do a home treatment of dengue. Dengue is too serious for you to play with using home treatments or quack medicine.

Homeopathy is a very questionable type of treatment without any foundation what so ever in fact or evidence. It is based on anecdotal stories and an ideology” introduced by a German quack who treated diseases of the sort that get cured by the body’s own defences. Homeopathic doctors”  prescribe medications” with such low concentrations of the so-called medication that it has become a case of their selling colored water or placebos with no medicinal content whatsoever, and relying on the patient’s own healing power, but claiming that its it is their homeopathic treatment that cured the patient. . Nevertheless, this charismatic man managed to build up a following and fortune. The homeopathy establishment has now become a vested interest that guards its interests by litigation. For instance, when French scientists published research questioning the validity of some of the homeopathic treatments offered by the practitioners of this quack art, and  when scientists showed that homeopathic portions  contained no detectable medical substances, the answer of the French Homeopathic Doctor’s association was to mount a stiff legal threat against the scientists instead of giving a scientific answer. In actual fact, that is the only answer that quack organization can give.
If course it is true that there are many doctors trained in modern medical science who also turn to homeopathy as a side line to satisfy some patients who are credulous enough to want such medications.
In fact, in some countries there are western doctors” who offer Yaga ceremonies” and incantations to Lord Vishnu” or even read horoscopes  in addition to giving a western prescription and charge additional amounts for the occult services. It should not be forgotten that medical practice has also a business.

Dengue fever has reached such a catastrophic state that the IDH in Colombo no longer accepts patients because it is no longer capable of dealing with even the patients that they have admitted. The out-station” hospitals are in an equally heavily strained state. The so-called dengue control program is a mockery in a country where garbage dumps and rubbish heaps are found everywhere, breeding flies, mosquitoes, rats and other pests. We might even expect rat pestilence and even the plague to descend on the country.  Meanwhile, the streets are choked full of Diesel buses, lorries and motor vehicles that belch out poisonous fumes right through out the day. Meanwhile, the government is totally oblivious to all this, and talks of creating a Toxin-free nation”(Vash-Visha Naethi ratak”) by banning fertilizers and herbicides that have been so essential to the good agricultural record of this country. The Yahapalanaya government has successfully destroyed our self-sufficiency in rice, and given a death knell to the tea industry, the cut flower industry, and many other agro-industries by banning the least harmful agrochemical, namely glyphosate from the country. Although glyphosate is banned, the environment is sprayed with poisonous chemicals to eliminate the Dengue mosquito.

Dr. Lal Jayasinhe had claimed  that we should go after the virus rather than the mosquito, and Dr. Pardeep Kariyawasam has ably responded to that in the Island Newspaper (May 12th, 2017 Island Newspaper). Professor Chandre  Dharmawardana had argued that the opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMO) by various foreign-funded NGOs, and also  the banning of DDT by the US
should be ignored and that the government should follow the 2006 WHO recommendation to allow the domestic use of DDT. Also, public opposition to the release of genetically modified male mosquitoes  exists mainly among a vocal fringe of westernized upper-class citizens who take their ideas from the US internet. The ordinary people in Sri Lanka do not  carry these myths borrowed from the internet, and hence it should be easy to introduce GMO mosquitoes to fight the Dengue mosquito especially if a suitable information campaign is used to educated the public before the application of such anti-Dengue measures.

So, instead of directing public energies to the PREVENTION of Dengue by  (a) using GMO sterile mosquitoes to end the regeneration of young mosquitoes, (b) use of DDT to eliminate the arrival of mosquitoes to ones dwellings, directing the public to quack remedies like homeopathy,  and home readies based on Papaw juice,  Anoda juice etc., which will in the end increase the mortality from Dengue fever.

In any case the solution is not curing dengue when stricken with it, but preventing dengue.