The early lockdown, fast tracking of COVID-19 suspects and financial intervention in key areas are the most significant highlights of Sri Lanka’s success story when it comes to curbing COVID-19 in Sri Lanka.

With 2902 COVID-19 infections, 2765 has already recovered and 126 in hospital.

Sixty-two patients suspected of being infected with virus are currently under observation.

With India alone recording over 2.7 million cases and taking the third spot in the world, Sri Lanka offers a glimmer of hope in curbing the daily infection rate.

“Early lockdown, a high testing rate and effective social distancing measures have proved to be key for Sri Lanka in their fight against the pandemic and keeping the infection rate low,” TRT World said, adding that from March to the end of April, Sri Lanka had conducted 930 tests per million people, while Sri Lanka’s South Asian neighbours had a very low testing rate, i.e. Bangladesh (393), India (602) and Pakistan (703).

“A reason why most of the cases are mild may be that the lockdown in Sri Lanka started very early," the article said, quoting Razia Pendse, a World Health Organisation (WHO) representative to Sri Lanka.

The article added, “The Sri Lankan Government also committed 0.1 per cent of GDP for quarantine and containment measures, and an additional US$ 5 million to the SAARC COVID-19 Emergency Fund.

"A separate presidential contributory fund was also raised, which is worth US$ 7.4 million to date. Apart from all these measures, the Government laid a strong emphasis on the surveillance system to keep COVID-19 mortality at bay.”

Emphasising that Sri Lanka's robust healthcare infrastructure was one of the main reasons the Government was able to act swiftly to respond to the first calls of COVID-19 infections, the Turkish new channel further said that the government mobilised healthcare workers to closely monitor the pandemic's movement right after the first case was reported in the country, and they ensured that most COVID-19 suspects are traced in potential hotspots.

Source: Ceylon Today