WHO to produce new kind of facial mask

The World Health Organisation is presently engaged in introducing a new face mask to help meet the increasing demand for the masks in most countries including Sri Lanka, the Chief Epidemiologist of the Academy of Epidemic Disease Unit, Dr Sudath Samaraweera said.

The worldwide shortage of masks and difficulties people had to face has prompted the WHO to design a new face mask using new raw-materials and hope to supply them to all countries soon.

Hubei Province in China is the main producer of the facial masks and source of the raw material used for manufacturing them. With the closure of the factories due to the coronavirus in the province, an acute shortage of masks prevails even in China.

He also said that a large quantity of masks were unnecessarily used in the recent past in our country creating a shortage due to the ignorance of the pattern of spreading of the disease.

A protest was held for opening up a quarantine centre at the Leprosy Hospital in Hendala and it would be a difficult task for the hospital staff to isolate the Sri Lankans who were due to arrive from Italy, South Korea and Iran where many coronavirus patients were reported, Dr Samaraweera said.

If an infected person gains access to mix with the society it would create a major health problem in the country specially during the festive season like Sinhala and Tamil New Year. Hence, quarantine process is vital for those arriving from countries where coronavirus patients were reported.

He also said the Health Ministry is studying the possibility of using universities, education academies and security forces camps as quarantine centres. (Indika Sri Aravinda)