With the risk of a second wave of Covid-19 looming since the activation of the Kandakadu cluster on 7 July, the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) has proposed the Ministry of Health to follow six preventive measures.
In a letter addressed to Director General of Health Services Dr. Anil Jasinghe, dated 13 July, GMOA Secretary Dr. Senal Fernando pointed out that the three pillars – namely, political will, social capital, and health capacity – need to be immediately reinforced in Sri Lanka to control Covid-19, both first as well as subsequent waves.
“In numerous occasions we stressed the importance of extensive PCR testing as a tool for controlling Covid-19 to the health authorities and in the ‘GMOA Covid-19 Exit Strategy’ presented to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, we stressed the importance of isolation of ‘contaminated zones’ (zonal lockdown) to prevent spread,” Dr. Fernando wrote.
The GMOA suggest the following steps to prevent a second wave of Covid-19:
- Contact tracing using both MoH (Ministry of Health) network and Military Intelligence
- Explore every possible way of increasing the PCR testing capacity to meet necessary demands
- Apply aggressive testing and test, test, test (repeated testing) strategy to identify Covid-19 patients
- Isolate contaminated areas to prevent spread to other areas (zonal lockdown)
- Random sampling covering the entire country using scientific criteria to eliminate uncertainty of Covid-19 status
- Compartmentalising high-risk institutions and gatherings will prevent mass-scale spread