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Inadequate PPE supply, insufficient testing: Saman Rathnapriya

07 Sep 2021

  • Health sector ground staff air litany of woes 
BY Dinitha Rathnayake Ground level health sector authorities including nurses and Government medical laboratory technologists bemoaned the lack of an adequate supply of personal protective equipment (PPE), and insufficient testing including for Covid-19 variants.  Government Nursing Officers Association (GNOA) Chairman Saman Rathnapriya, speaking to the media, claimed that the Government has no vision to control the current Covid-19 situation and that it is violating the rights of all civil societies in the country at this time by trying to suppress their voices. “To control this pandemic, the Government has to lock down the country and close all borders. The vaccination process has to be successful. The health sector should be given priority more than anything.” According to Rathnapriya, health staff are in a critical situation as they do not have adequate facilities including face masks, and PPE kits. “Members of the health sector work in an insecure environment,” he added. Rathnapriya also alleged that while they have requested a scientific lockdown, the Government has however provided a political lockdown. “Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests have been reduced by 20,963 and rapid antigen tests (RATs) by 16,965 during the last 10 days. We urge the Government not to make this pandemic a business opportunity.” Meanwhile, College of Medical Laboratory Science President Ravi Kumudesh explained that when the spread of Covid-19 goes beyond the normal (more than 100 new patients per population of 100,000 and over 10% positive tests), or when the control is confirmed to be weak in a country, that country is in the red zone and travel to a country designated as a red zone is suspended by other countries. Sri Lanka, according to Kumudesh, is among those countries. “As far as the Covid-19 variants are concerned, the Delta (B.1.617.2) Covid-19 variant of Indian origin is currently spreading in Sri Lanka. Due to the fact that there is a very high rate of variations in the country and owing to their impact on mortality and the rate of transmission, it is important to have an accurate understanding of the existing variant composition in the country and to convince other countries that such testing processes exists in the country so that Sri Lanka can be moved out of the red zone. However, only one laboratory belonging to the Education Ministry (at the Sri Jayewardenepura University) is currently capable of conducting gene sequencing tests in our country. They carry out a maximum of less than 400 different tests. Therefore, Sri Lanka can be considered as a country that does not have a proper understanding of variants. Although we do not have a separate complete facility to perform variant tests, PCR tests that can predict variants can be performed very easily. For this purpose, special reagent kits already in use in the country should be provided to molecular laboratories.”

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