
Chaturaka RodrigoUNSW Sydney | UNSW · Department of Pathology
Chaturaka Rodrigo
MBBS MD PhD FHEA FRCP
About
192
Publications
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Introduction
Chaturaka Rodrigo currently works at the Department of Pathology, UNSW Sydney. His research focus is on genomics of rapidly mutating RNA viruses. He is also interested in neglected tropical infections such as leptospirosis, malaria and evidence synthesis to improve patient care in developing countries
Additional affiliations
February 2017 - present
March 2014 - May 2017
Publications
Publications (192)
Background
Current literature informs us that bivalent vaccines will generate a broader serum neutralizing antibody response to multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants, but studies on how this breadth relates to the memory B cell (MBC) and T cell responses are sparse. This study compared breadth of neutralising antibody, and memory B and T cell responses to m...
Arboviral diseases are a growing global health concern. Pre-existing autoantibodies (auto-Abs) neutralizing type I interferons (IFNs) can underlie encephalitis due to West Nile virus (WNV) (∼40% of patients) and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE, due to TBE virus [TBEV]) (∼10%). We report here that these auto-Abs can also underlie severe forms of rarer...
The impact of non-motor symptoms is often overlooked in favour of the motor symptoms when managing Parkinson’s disease resulting in suboptimal patient outcomes. This study aimed to characterise the non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease in a cohort of Sri Lankan patients with a special focus on the impulsive control disorders and other compulsiv...
Brucellosis is a difficult to treat infection that requires antibiotic combinations administered over several weeks for clearance of infection and relapse prevention. This systematic review summarizes current evidence for antibiotic treatment of human brucellosis. PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, CINAHL, Web of Science, and China Academic Journal databases...
Introduction
Query (Q) fever is a zoonosis caused by the bacterium Coxiella burnetii typically presenting as an influenza-like illness (ILI) with or without hepatitis. The infection may be missed by clinicians in settings of low endemicity, as the presentation is clinically not specific, and there are many more common differential diagnoses for ILI...
Early neutralizing antibodies against hepatitis C virus (HCV) and CD8 + T cell effector responses can lead to viral clearance. However, these functions alone are not sufficient to protect patients against HCV infection, thus undefined additional antiviral immune mechanisms are required. In recent years, Fc‐receptor‐dependent antibody effector funct...
Globally, snakebites cause an estimated 80 000–140 000 deaths annually. While there are evidence-based recommendations for managing snakebite victims, recommendations on the prevention of snakebites are limited to expert opinions. We conducted a rapid review to summarise evidence from human studies with a control group on preventing snakebites. Sea...
Early identification of dengue patients at risk of adverse outcomes is important to prevent hospital overcrowding in low- to middle- income countries during epidemics. We performed a systematic review to identify which biomarkers measured in first 96 h of fever could predict dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF, World Health Organization 1997 clinical cl...
Body weight is an important clinical parameter for accurate dosing of drugs with a narrow therapeutic window, However, it is difficult to measure the body weight of a patient if they cannot stand on a scale. There are several anthropometrics-based equations to estimate the body weight, but most of these are derived from white Caucasian populations...
Early neutralising antibodies against Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and CD8+T cell effector responses can lead to viral clearance. However, these functions alone are not sufficient to protect patients against HCV infection, thus yet undefined additional anti-viral immune mechanisms are required. In recent years, Fc-receptor-dependent antibody effector fu...
All four serotypes of the dengue virus (DENV1–4) cause a phenotypically similar illness, but serial infections from different serotypes increase the risk of severe disease. Thus, genomic surveillance of circulating viruses is important to detect serotype switches that precede community outbreaks of disproportionate magnitude. A phylogenetic analysi...
Background
At least a third of dengue patients develop plasma leakage with increased risk of life-threatening complications. Predicting plasma leakage using laboratory parameters obtained in early infection as means of triaging patients for hospital admission is important for resource-limited settings.
Methods
A Sri Lankan cohort including 4,768 i...
Background
Dengue could cause complications with an estimated 10,000 deaths per annum. It mostly affects low- and middle-income countries such as Sri Lanka with limited healthcare resources to handle seasonal outbreaks. A third of dengue patients usually have a critical phase characterized by plasma leakage with increased risk of life-threatening c...
Introduction
Almost three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to reflect on student perceptions of online teaching, and more specifically, if mobility restrictions imposed as public health measures significantly influenced how students perceived online teaching. The aim of this study was to investigate if student perceptions of teachi...
Given the structural similarity between Zika and dengue viruses, prior infection from one virus is hypothesized to modulate the severity of a subsequent infection from the other virus. A previous paediatric cohort study observed that a prior Zika infection may increase the risk of a subsequent symptomatic or severe dengue infection. The Colombo Den...
Phagocytic responses by effector cells to opsonized viruses have been recognized to play a key role in antiviral immunity. Limited data on coronavirus disease 2019 suggest that the role of Ab-dependent and -independent phagocytosis may contribute to the observed immunological and inflammatory responses; however, their development, duration, and rol...
Post-chikungunya joint pain (arthritis or arthralgia) is a clinical concern in endemic regions as it may cause a debilitating illness sometimes years after the acute infection. This systematic review analyses evidence from controlled clinical trials regarding the efficacy of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions to treat post-chikun...
Introduction
Comprehensive investigation of the within-host evolution of hepatitis C virus (HCV) variants has been difficult without high coverage deep sequencing data and bioinformatics tools to characterise these variants. With the advent of high throughput, long-read sequencing platforms such as Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT), capturing within...
Background & Aims
Direct-acting antiviral (DAA) regimens provide a cure in >95% of patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV). Patients who fail therapy may select viruses with drug resistance-associated substitutions (RAS), limiting retreatment options and risking onward resistant virus transmission. SHARED is an international consortium of clinicians...
Understanding the long-term maintenance of SARS-CoV-2 immunity is critical for predicting protection against reinfection. In an age and gender matched cohort of 24 participants, the association of disease severity and early immune responses on the maintenance of humoral immunity 12 months post-infection is examined. All severely affected participan...
Phagocytic responses by effector cells to antibody or complement-opsonised viruses have been recognized to play a key role in anti-viral immunity. These include antibody dependent cellular phagocytosis mediated via Fc-receptors, phagocytosis mediated by classically activated complement-fixing IgM or IgG1 antibodies and antibody independent phagocyt...
Background
Euthanasia is a topic of intense ethical debate and it is illegal in most countries at present, including Sri Lanka. The aim of this descriptive cross-sectional study of medical students and practicing doctors was to explore the acceptance of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide (PAS), and factors influencing this opinion.
Methods...
Background
Stroke related deaths are relatively higher in low- and middle-income countries where only a fraction of eligible patients undergo thrombolysis. There is also limited evidence on post-thrombolysis outcomes of patients from Asian countries in these income bands.
Methods
This is a single center prospective observational study of a patient...
Plasma leakage is a precursor to life-threatening complications of dengue, but this group is poorly defined and not often reported in literature. Patients with Dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) as defined in the 1997 World Health Organization classification are often reported, and they all have plasma leakage, but some patients with plasma leakage do...
Introduction
The cost in managing hospitalised dengue patients varies across countries depending on access to healthcare, management guidelines, and state sponsored subsidies. For health budget planning, locally relevant, accurate costing data from prospective studies, is essential.
Objective
To characterise the direct costs of managing hospitalis...
Viral hepatitis remains one of the most significant health issues globally, directly responsible for over 1 million deaths each year and affecting almost 300 million people around the world. Scientific research in recent decades has brought about improvements in the lives of people living with chronic viral hepatitis. On the 29 July 2021, the Austr...
The advent of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) has transformed the treatment landscape of hepatitis C [...]
Background
Stroke related deaths are relatively higher in low- and middle-income countries where only a fraction of eligible patients undergo thrombolysis. There is also limited evidence on post-thrombolysis outcomes of patients from Asian countries in these income bands.
Methods
This is a single center prospective observational study of a patient...
Lack of a simple, high throughput antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis (ADCP) assay has limited our understanding of its potential role of in hepatitis C (HCV) infection. Here, we optimised a flow-cytometry based ADCP assay using HCV envelope (E2)-protein coated microbeads that were opsonised with anti-E2 monoclonal IgG antibody (αE2 mAb) and t...
Objectives
To compare the traditional haematocrit‐based criteria (>20% rise above baseline) with ultrasonography for diagnosing plasma leakage in dengue fever and to identify clinical indicators for triaging patients in resource‐limited settings when the demand for ultrasonography is high.
Methods
The Colombo Dengue Study is a prospective observat...
Background
Hepatitis C (HCV) and many other RNA viruses exist as rapidly mutating quasi-species populations in a single infected host. High throughput characterization of full genome, within-host variants is still not possible despite advances in next generation sequencing. This limitation constrains viral genomic studies that depend on accurate id...
Considerable concerns relating to the duration of protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2 exist, with evidence of antibody titres declining rapidly after infection and reports of reinfection. Here we monitor the antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD) for up to six months after infection. While antibody titres are maintai...
The acute sickness response (ASR) is a stereotyped set of symptoms including fatigue, pain, and disturbed mood, which are present in most acute infections. The immunological mechanisms of the ASR are conserved, with variations in severity determined partly by the pathogen, but also by polymorphisms in host genes. ASR was characterised in three diff...
Background
Chemoprophylaxis is an effective tool for individuals to minimize their risk of contracting malaria and serves an important public health role in preventing imported malaria. Yet, it is only effective if the traveller is fully compliant with the prescribed regimen. For many destinations, a choice of prophylactic agents is available, so h...
Background
Previous studies on post-infection fatigue in dengue are few but suggest that up to 25% of dengue patients may suffer from fatigue. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence and associations of post-infection fatigue in dengue patients compared with non-dengue fever patients.
Methods
Post-infection fatigue and its demographic and clin...
Current methods for dengue virus (DENV) genome amplification, amplify parts of the genome in at least 5 overlapping segments and then combine the output to characterize a full genome. This process is laborious, costly and requires at least 10 primers per serotype, thus increasing the likelihood of PCR bias. We introduce an assay to amplify near ful...
Considerable concerns relating to the duration of protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2 have been raised, with evidence of antibody titres declining rapidly after infection and reports of reinfection. Here we monitored antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD) for up to six months after infection. While antibody titres we...
Background:
Plasmodium vivax malaria has a persistent liver stage that causes relapse of the disease and continued P vivax transmission. Primaquine (PQ) is used to clear the liver stage of the parasite, but treatment is required for 14 days. Primaquine also causes haemolysis in people with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency. Tafen...
Adjunct therapy in snakebite may be lifesaving if administered appropriately or can be harmful if non-judicious use leads to avoidable delays in administering antivenom. This systematic review analyses the evidence from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) on the efficacy of adjunct treatment administered with antivenom. PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, Coch...
Abstract Background Antiretroviral treatment has played a pivotal role in the reduction of HIV/AIDS-related morbidity and mortality. However, treatment options can be impaired by the development of antiretroviral treatment failure. Regular monitoring of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus treatment outcome via viral load tests is the key approach. The...
The Australasian Virology Society (AVS) aims to promote, support and advocate for the discipline of virology in the Australasian region. The society was incorporated in 2011 after 10 years operating as the Australian Virology Group (AVG) founded in 2001, coinciding with the inaugural biennial scientific meeting. AVS conferences aim to provide a for...
Background
Repurposing hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and chloroquine (CQ) as antiviral agents is a re-emerging topic with new viral epidemics.
Objectives
To summarize evidence from human clinical studies for using HCQ or CQ as antiviral agents for any viral infection.
Data sources
PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, Web of Science for published studies without ti...
In 2017, a dengue epidemic of unexpected magnitude occurred in Sri Lanka. A total of 186,101 suspected cases and 440 dengue-related deaths occurred. We conducted a comprehensive analysis of this epidemic by comparing national surveillance data for 2017 with data from the preceding 5 years. In all Sri Lanka districts, dengue incidence in 2017 increa...
Background:
Sri Lanka was certified as malaria-free in September 2016. However, the continuous presence of the malaria vector poses serious risks of reintroduction of the disease. Chemoprophylaxis and advice on malaria preventive behaviour for international travellers is a key strategy adopted to reduce the risk of imported malaria.
Methods:
We...
Background and aims:
Neutralising antibodies (NAb) play a key role in clearance of hepatitis C virus (HCV). NAbs have been isolated and mapped to several domains on the HCV Envelope proteins. However, the immunodominance of these epitopes in HCV infection remains unknown, hindering vaccine efforts to elicit optimal epitope-specific responses. Furt...
Background:
Carica papaya (CP) extract is becoming popular as an unlicensed herbal remedy purported to hasten recovery in dengue infection, mostly based on observations that it may increase platelet counts. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to critically analyze the evidence from controlled clinical trials on the efficacy and safety of...
Abstract Background A major challenge in dengue management in resource limited settings is the confirmation of diagnosis. Clinical features of dengue often overlap with other infections and molecular diagnostic tools are not readily accessible to clinicians at hospitals. In addition, the prediction of plasma leakage in dengue is also difficult. Hem...
Background:
Patch testing with a baseline series is a common tool employed when the sensitizing agent in contact dermatitis is unclear. However, for Asian countries, there are no locally validated baseline series to utilize in screening.
Methods:
We completed a retrospective analysis of all patients that had undergone patch testing with the Euro...
Primaquine was the only licenced antimalarial hypnozoiticidal drug available until recently. Now there is a newly approved alternative: tafenoquine. This review explores the efficacy of tafenoquine as a primary and terminal prophylactic agent in malaria. Multiple databases (Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials [CENTRAL], MEDLINE [PubMed],...
Transfer of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection from a donor to a new recipient is associated with a bottleneck of genetic diversity in the transmitted viral variants. Existing data suggests that one, or very few, variants emerge from this bottleneck to establish the infection (transmitted founder [T/F] variants). In HCV, very few T/F variants have b...
Introduction
Narratives (as opposed to stories) can assess multiple facets of the same problem through the viewpoints of different characters.
Methods
Narratives related to three cancer patients, from diagnosis to cure or death, were used to teach seven cancer-related themes in a Cancer Pathology course offered to third-year medical science and sc...
Interactions between the host immune system and the viral variants determine persistence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection after the acute phase of infection. This study describes the genetic variability of within‐host HCV viral variants in acute infection and correlates it with host and virus‐related traits and infection outcome. Next generatio...
Objectives:
This study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes and skills of non-specialist doctors on timely referral of suspicious lesions for melanoma diagnosis.
Results:
One hundred and twenty-three doctors (mean age; 30.4 years, SD ± 8.015) were enrolled. Very few (3.3%) correctly stated all four types of melanoma. Only 8.1% of the total s...
Objectives:
Current guidelines suggest that patients presenting with the first seizure should be assessed by a specialist, preferably with investigations such as electroencephalography and imaging to reach a definitive diagnosis. We conducted a cross sectional study among patients with confirmed epilepsy, at a tertiary level neurology clinic in Sr...
Background:
Next generation sequencing (NGS) methods have significantly contributed to a paradigm shift in genomic research for nearly a decade now. These methods have been useful in studying the dynamic interactions between RNA viruses and human hosts.
Scope of the review:
In this review, we summarise and discuss key applications of NGS in stud...
Abstract
Introduction
The pathophysiology of severe dengue is related to increased capillary permeability and plasma leakage into extracellular space. A simple, low cost risk prediction tool for plasma leakage will be useful for clinicians practicing in rural areas without imaging facilities.
Study design
A prospective observational study was ca...
Introduction:
The effectiveness of the passive case detection (PCD) system for imported malaria was assessed in government hospitals in Sri Lanka post-elimination of malaria.
Methods:
In 18 medical wards (test wards) in four government hospitals, the referral for malaria testing and the diagnosis of malaria by the ward physicians were monitored....
Background:
In special circumstances, establishing public private partnerships for malaria elimination may achieve targets faster than the state sector acting by itself. Following the end of the separatist war in Sri Lanka in 2009, the Anti Malaria Campaign (AMC) of Sri Lanka intensified malaria surveillance jointly with a private sector partner,...
The global incidence of dengue has increased sevenfold between 1990 and 2013. Despite a low case fatality rate (<1%), during epidemics, due to the large number of people affected, overall mortality rates can be significant. The risk of clinically significant bleeding in dengue is unpredictable and often contributes to an adverse outcome. This syste...
Scrub typhus, a potentially fatal infection caused by the pathogen Orientia tsutsugamushi, has a wide geographical distribution. This systematic review analyses the evidence from prospective controlled clinical studies for the efficacy of antibiotics in the treatment of scrub typhus. PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Library, CINAHL and clinical tri...