9 July 2020 03:51 pm
At least 56 people of the 450 inmates and staff members at the Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre – East in Kandakadu, tested positive for COVID-19 today, Health Services Director General Dr. Anil Jasinghe said.
He said reports of the PCR tests performed on the rest of them were yet to be received.
An inmate, who was transferred from Kandakadu Rehabilitation Centre to Welikada Prison tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday (07), following which 315 inmates of the Welikada prison were subjected to PCR tests.
According to PCR reports, none of them tested positive for the virus.
Moreover, Dr. Jasinghe said a female counsellor attached to the Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre also tested positive for the virus from Marawila today.
She had been subjected to a PCR test at the Marawila Hospital.
Health authorities have launched an operation to identify the contacts of the woman, who tested positive for the virus from Marawila and send them to quarantine process.
The Epidemiology Unit reported 2,153 Covid-19 cases from Sri Lanka upto 6 pm today.
Chief Epidemiologist of the Epidemiology Unit, Dr. Sudath Samaraweera told the Daily Mirror that health authorities expected such kind of cases and added that was why they carried out random PCR tests consistently from the society.
“We are still in the process of identifying risk communities,” he added.
He further said they were yet to identify as to how the person, who tested positive for Covid-19 from the Welikada prison, was diagnosed with the virus.(Sheain Fernandopulle)