(UTV | COLOMBO) – The Director General of Health Services Dr. Asela Gunawardana has issued a special circular to all physicians containing criteria to ascertain whether an individual death is directly related to COVID-19 infection. Those criteria include the clinical confirmation that the main reason for a person’s death is due to COVID-19.
Although it has been confirmed that a person with a long-term illness was infected with COVID 19 at the time of death, only if there is evidence that infection is the leading cause of death it should be termed as a death due to COVID-19 the Director General of Health Services states.
He has said that the recommendations of the World Health Organisation must also be followed to confirm the death of a COVID-19 infection, and it is mandatory to mark the death certificate as a COVID-19 infected death.
The circular issued by the Director General of Health Services further states that even if the PCR examination of a person after death identifies the person as having Covid infection, the post mortem report should clearly state that the main cause of death is Covid-19 infection.