Action taken to control pandemic spread unsatisfactory – expert

By Rathindra Kuruwita

Sri Lanka had lost control of COVID-19 as the government had not taken steps to reduce the spread of the virus among the people, Executive Director of the Institute for Health Policy (IHP), Dr. Ravi Rannan-Eliya told The Island yesterday.

“We are not doing what we need to do to slow or reduce transmission, and what we need to do remains unchanged with Delta or any other worse variant. The government must increase measures to curb the transmission,” he said.

Commenting on the announcement made by State Minister Channa Jayasumana that three new mutations of COVID-19 have been detected in Sri Lanka, Dr. Eliya said that mutations to the virus happened all the time.

“Almost daily, so it is unclear from press reports what exactly they are saying. The implication is that these are sets of mutations that are more substantial or significant than the usual ones, or mutation sets associated with other variants of concern in other countries. Without knowing more, it is hard to assess,” he said.

Dr. Eliya noted that it would be very difficult to assess whether a new variant is more infectious using Sri Lankan data because it was highly unlikely that the country had the kind of data or surveillance to do that well, or to assess relative vaccine efficacy.

“It is unfortunate that the government is not taking action to slow transmission. The actions of businesses and people to do what the government is not doing is to be applauded, but cannot fully compensate for government inaction,” he said, commenting on the decision taken by about 30 traders’ associations across the country to close their shops voluntarily.