Japan praises SL military’s role in combating Covid-19

The Japanese Government has commended the role of the military and Police in supporting the health authorities to combat coronavirus in the country, Sri Lanka Defence Ministry said.

“We appreciate your efforts taken to control the spread of coronavirus,” Deputy Head of Mission of the Japanese Embassy Toshishiro Kitamura said when he met Defence Secretary Maj.Gen. (Retd) Kamal Gunaratne at the Ministry, today. (April 24)

He said in Japan, which has a death toll of 360, the Government has requested people to ‘Stay at Home’ and no curfew was imposed to control the spread of the virus.

Explaining the present situation with regard to coronavirus control in the country, the Defence Secretary said the Government had applied the ‘root bolt’ system, which will evacuate all possible contact links of coronavirus infected patients in respective areas.

The Defence Secretary said if only the health authorities had given the task to control the spread of coronavirus, it would have reached to an uncontrollable point.

He also mentioned about 30 sailors getting infected with coronavirus, yesterday and the precautions taken at the Naval Base in Welisara to contain the spread of the virus to protect the others at the Naval Base.  

Maj.Gen. Gunaratne said PCR tests would be done for each and every sailor at the Naval Base and arrangements had been made to bring the sailors on leave back to the Base to put them under PCR tests.

“Apart from the Tri-Forces and Police, we use our intelligence agencies extensively to trace those who have close links to coronavirus positives to make the particular areas free of the virus,” Maj.Gen. Gunaratne said.

He said the military and Police, which were playing supportive roles to the health authorities, first analyses the cluster of corona infected people, their behaviour, and their close links before  locking down a village or an area.

“Depending on the analysis, if the lockdown was not enough to control the spreading of coronavirus, the government would send the people in the entire village for quarantine,” he said, “If only a few families had exposed to a coronavirus positive, we will put only those families under quarantine,”.

The Defence Secretary and Deputy head of Mission Kitamura discussed strengthening defence relations, especially improving naval capabilities of the Sri Lanka Navy and Sri Lanka Coast Guards which are heavily engaged in combating drug smuggling and human trafficking.

Embassy’s Defence Advisor Captain Fakaura Gaku has also participated at the meeting.