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Disclaimer / Limitations
This country’s legal measures were reviewed by our legal staff in consultation with in-country lawyers and/or CRVS legal experts. All efforts were made to ensure the accuracy of the legal analysis, however, if you consider there to be any discrepancies or if there have been changes in the law of the country since our staff last updated the legal analysis, we welcome any additional information or insights. Please contact us via this form.
Cause of Death
Sri Lanka
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Sri Lanka
Cause of Death
Medical Certificate of Cause of Death Form
Medical Certificate of Cause of Death Form
Form
Does the law provide a form to certify cause of death? If yes, does the form accord with WHO Medical Certificate of Cause of Death Form?
Yes the law provides a form for certifying cause of death that does not accord with WHO Standard MCCD Form
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
The WHO international form of Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (WHO MCCD) is the recommended form for recording information regarding cause of death for certification of all deaths, including stillbirths and unnatural or suspicious deaths. There may be modifications to the form including addition of biographical information of the deceased in an administrative section. Countries may also modify the Manner of Death section as appropriate for their context; however, the form should always include a manner of death section and "Frame B: other medical data" contained in the WHO MCCD.
Form J in Births and Deaths Registration Act is the Certificate of Cause of Death that is required by law to be completed by a medical person who attended the decedent. However, this form is no longer in use. In practice, Form B33 is used by medical officers and hospitals to certify terminal, contributory and underlying causes of death. The Form B33 used by medical professionals to certify cause of death contains only Frame A of the WHO MCCD. Even though Form B33 instructions mandate that this form be filled out for all neonatal and maternal deaths, it does not contain Frame B of the WHO MCCD Form, which includes "other medical data", "manner of death", "place of occurrence of external cause", foetal/infant death, and maternal death information. All of this information is required for statitics purposes and for accurate ICD coding.
If the MCCD contains a section for reporting manner of death, is the certifier required to fill it out?
Not applicable
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
Even if the medical certification of cause of death form used in the jurisdiction is modified from the WHO MCCD form, the form should always include a manner of death section that is aligned with "Frame B: other medical data" contained in the WHO MCCD Standard Form. This is to ensure mortality and morbidity data can be consistently captured by ICD Coders, across countries.
