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02nd April 2021 09:22:32 Hours
General Shavendra Silva, Head, NOCPCO, Chief of Defence Staff and Commander of the Army and Dr Asela Gunawardena, Medical Specialist & Director General of Health Services (DGHS) this afternoon (1) co-chaired one more session of the NOCPCO Task Force, attended by all members and experts in the field at the NOCPCO.
The Task Force closely reviewed the status quo, new developments and emergency measures in the face of detection of more and more positive cases. Management of infiltration of the virus into new areas, behavioral patterns of the public, The NOCPCO Head told the meeting every effort would be made to minimize the number of positive causes as per directions of HE the President in order to avoid inconvenience to the general public.
The Task Force meeting was told by Head of the NOCPCO that the drop in the detection of positive cases around the country was due to many reasons and adoption of strict health procedures, although we still need to sustain the momentum and continue our health practices particularly during forthcoming New Year festival season.
Referring to importation of Chinese vaccines, General Shavendra Silva said that the stock was brought at the request of HE the President and it will be first provided to Chinese nationals resident in Sri Lanka in close coordination with the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, vaccination of Chinese nationals would start tomorrow, giving priority to them, he added.
The remaining 500,000 jabs from India will reach here by 10th April and it had to be postponed since the threat of COVID-19 in India worsened. However, vaccination would commence after 10th April, NOCPCO Head assured. He also pointed out that the government has ordered 13 million of Russian jabs and stocks are expected by last week of June and the full stock would reach here by August, he explained.
He also explained about clusters that were reported from the Sapugaskanda refinery and Jaffna and said that those clusters were effectively brought under control. Talking about repatriation of Sri Lankan expatriates, he said that a total of 130,000 Sri Lankans have so far been brought down and the process would continue in future too.
DG Health Services, Dr Asela Gunawardene also underlined the need to restrict movements during the festive season and revealed that 9,27,000 vaccines have so far been administered to civilians above 60 plus in age and touched upon emergence of new clusters in Sapugaskanda and Jaffna. He also told the meeting that new health guidelines for the New Year would be issued shortly.
