1 July 2021 08:42 am Views - 69
By JAMILA HUSAIN
Sri Lanka is still not facing a community transmission of the COVID-19 virus as a majority of the patients found are connected to other patients, a senior health ministry official told Daily Mirror yesterday. The official said that unlike other countries, Sri Lanka continued to detect its COVID-19 patients through vigorous contact tracing and by quarantining all those who had come in contact with positive patients, which had helped the country keep its numbers low and prevent a massive spread.
The official said that countries in the region including India followed these similar practices as well.
He added that even amidst the third wave, a majority of the patients detected were those connected to positive patients which is why Sri Lanka continued testing and quarantining the contacts.
“Countries who have a community transmission have larger numbers and cannot identify the source of how the patients were infected. The death toll in these countries are also far much higher and the strategies their officials have to adopt is different. In Sri Lanka we continue with contact tracing, quarantining and testing because almost all the patients were the first or second contacts of positive patients. So scientifically we cannot say Sri Lanka is undergoing a community spread as the source is known,” the senior Health Ministry official said.
A very small group who were identified without a source recently, but investigations have proved that there has been a source.
Presently the COVID-19 virus has spread to every district of the island and efforts are now underway to see how far the Indian Delta variant has spread after it was originally located in Dematagoda.
Health officials have urged citizens to be extremely cautious and practice all health guidelines as the Delta variant was more contagious and spread at a faster pace.
State Minister of Primary Health Care, Epidemics and COVID-19 Disease Control, Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle said the Delta variant could be the most prevalent coronavirus variant in Sri Lanka within 10 weeks if the public fails to adhere to health safety guidelines.