Sajith also a second contact: Pavithra

By Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera   

Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi said in parliament a mechanism is in place to trace contacts and added that Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa who visited a Hotel in Yala recently was swiftly informed that he was a second contact.  

“That was done because of the effective mechanism in place,” she said.  

Opposition Leader Premadasa said he followed the health advice of the doctors.  

Minister Wanniarachchi said Sri Lanka was the first country in South Asia that started PCR testing and added that it took three months to complete 50,000 PCR tests but 100,000 PCR tests were done within seven days after the Minuwangoda cluster.  

She said the Health Ministry or the epidemiologists had not confirmed that there was a community transmission of COVID-19 in the country.  

She told Parliament that all the patients reported in the country were contacts of the Minuwangoda cluster.  
The Minister said this in response to a question raised by Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa that COVID-19 had spread into a community transmission from the clusters in several places including Kuliyapitiya.  

Mr. Premadasa said PCR testing in most places were not done in a satisfactory manner and pointed out that doctors and health authorities in Kuliyapitiya claimed that the PCR machines were out of order. 

 
He said Health Minister was claiming that there was no community transmission when GMOA was saying that COVID-19 had spread into the community now.