Past week Sri Lankan authorities had quarantined hundreds of persons who had come into contact with staff and volunteers including military personnel who worked at a drug rehabilitation centre in Kandakadu where inmates were infected from addicts who were transferred after a two-week quarantine.
The Coronavirus tests conducted has been negative on most contacts of Covid-19 infected staffers on leave from drug rehabilitation centres in Kandakadu. The officials are urging the public and private firms to follow health regulations and exercise caution.
Result of 395 tests done on contacts in Rajangana in Anuradhapura, where a number of persons had become infected from a staffer on leave, had been negative on July 15, said the head of Health Service. Contacts of an infected person at a private hospital in Ragama had also been negative and more test results are due yet.
In Sri Lanka, contacts are tested after 10 days. A contact could develop the disease up to 21 days or a little later, but a negative test shows that the persons would not have infected anyone they had met. Thus there is a gap in quarantine testing unlike many other countries for example in Vietnam, where released persons are tested twice in home quarantine before giving a quarantine certificate.
The Kandakadu rehabilitation centre is believed to have been infected from drug users who had undergone 14-day quarantine process followed by the authorities. Early days, authorities did not test quarantined persons before release either. Though the country has an aggressive contact tracing and quarantine process, yet there are unusual restrictions on testing high-risk persons. 101 samples were taken from Kundasale in Kandy, 74 persons in connection with a church in Kotugoda and 266 persons in connection with Tantirimale and Rantembe who are family members of inmates who had visited them.
The authorities confirmed 9 persons tested positive up to 2130 hours on July 15, taking the total to 2,671 persons. By late afternoon, one person who had returned from Qatar had been confirmed. About 12,000 persons are in lockdown in Rajangana where family members of a Kandakadu staffer had been infected.
Sri Lankan authories are doing well continuing to smash COVID-19 virus away in spite of pressure from politicians preparing people for the General Election and the situation has changed in the country for the better. Meanwhile, officials are urging the public to strictly follow Coronavirus health rules and wear masks as they have become more relaxed recently. In workplaces, the heads of institutions are accountable to keep the different units separate and let them come and go separately.
Northern Breeze 