Sri Lanka's dengue fever outbreak has reached epidemic proportions, infecting tens of thousands and exposing the collapse of its public health system. This crisis, a social crime, is the result of decades of austerity imposed by successive governments under the IMF's dictates, dismantling the universal right to free healthcare. The situation is dire, with hospitals overwhelmed, nurses and staff overworked, and patients forced to lie in corridors due to a severe shortage of beds and resources. The official figures drastically underestimate the true scale of the disaster, as 75-80% of infected individuals are asymptomatic but still capable of transmitting the disease. This gap between official statistics and reality reflects a deliberate policy of concealment, similar to the COVID-19 pandemic, where governments reduced testing and manipulated death figures. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna/National People’s Power (JVP/NPP) government is downplaying the outbreak, failing to commit the necessary resources to eliminate mosquito breeding sites and provide adequate hospital care. The response has been militarized and punitive, treating workers and the poor as criminals rather than victims of a collapsing public health system. The epidemic is a social crime produced by the systematic destruction of Sri Lanka’s public health system and the decades-long assault on the universal right to free healthcare. The situation is dire, with hospitals overwhelmed, nurses and staff overworked, and patients forced to lie in corridors due to a severe shortage of beds and resources. The Socialist Equality Party calls on workers to establish independent action committees to fight for the resources needed to rebuild public health, placing major banks, corporations, and private hospitals under democratic workers' control and rejecting foreign debt repayments. This crisis demands a political struggle to establish a workers' and peasants' government based on socialist policies.
