Rathindra Kuruwita

Everything possible must be done to prevent the highly virulent COVID-19 strains from South Africa and the United Kingdom from arriving in Sri Lanka, Prof. Neelika Malavige, from the Department of Immunology and Molecular Medicine, University of Sri Jayewardenepura told the media yesterday.

Prof. Malavige said that the strain found in Sri Lanka was much less virulent than the above-mentioned strains.

“We just have to do our best to stop these strains from coming in,” she said.

She said that the Jayewardenepura University had analysed coronavirus samples from various parts of the country and had found that they all belonged to a single strain.

“We are currently analyzing the samples from Badulla where the virus is rapidly spreading,” she said

Commenting on Prof. Malavige’s claim, President of the College of Medical Laboratory Science, Ravi Kumudesh told The Island that the government had to allow the government- testing facilities at the BIA to test incoming tourists. Test labs should also be established in other airports too, he said.

“We don’t get samples at the airport. The Health Ministry has allowed businessmen to take this over. This has become a great money-making scheme for certain private sector institutions. Some so-called experts are also manipulating data to justify this practice.”

Kumudesh said that when they proposed to establish a PCR lab at the BIA, there had been a lot of resistance from certain officials of the Health Ministry and doctors that also work for private labs.

“However, the Health Secretary gave us his blessings and we established a lab within 10 days. This lab that can give PCR test report swithin one and a half hours. It can accommodate 4,500 tests per day. I don’t think that more than 1,500 people would come in a day in the coming months,” he said.