BY SARAH HANNAN In what may be an unprecedented move, Public Health Inspectors (PHIs) are being employed by the Government to monitor passengers that arrived prior to strict quarantine procedures being put in place in Sri Lanka from countries which have suffered Covid-19 outbreaks. Passengers who arrived prior to imposing strict quarantine measures were requested to report to their nearest Medical Officers of Health (MOHs), and are now being closely monitored by PHIs who are routinely paying visits to them as they follow self- quarantine measures, Director General Health Services Dr. Anil Jasinghe said. The Ministry of Health has provided instructions to those who arrived in Sri Lanka from Iran, Italy, South Korea, or any other country which is affected by Covid-19 prior to 10 March, when strict quarantine measures were put in place, to follow self-quarantine procedures. “There were several groups that arrived in Sri Lanka from the high-risk countries such as Italy and South Korea, prior to setting up strict quarantine procedures. Upon their arrival to the country, we requested them to follow self-quarantine procedures and report to the Medical Officers of Health in their area to update the MOH that they had arrived from such countries,” Minister of Health and Indigenous Medicial Services Pavithra Wanniarachchi noted at a press conference yesterday (14). These persons are monitored by the MOHs attached to the 17 hospitals that have been appointed as recommended Covid-19 treatment centres, she further confirmed. She also noted that the majority of the confirmed patients had travelled to Sri Lanka from the high-risk countries or had been persons who had closely moved with infected persons who arrived from these countries. In a health guideline handed to these passengers at the arrivals lounge, the Ministry had instructed them to not go to crowded places, as they could be possibly carrying the virus, and if they were infected the symptoms may not have surfaced yet. “The next 14 days are therefore going to be crucial as there might be more infected patients being detected who would test positive for Covid-19. We can easily control the situation at the quarantine centres as we are able to easily monitor these individuals. However, we cannot do the same for persons who had arrived prior to the strict quarantine procedures,” Director General Health Services Dr. Jasinghe said. He further elaborated that there are stages in an outbreak, and the first stage of it is when the virus gets brought in o the country through a carrier and the next stage is community transmission. “We are trying to control the second stage of this outbreak. While we do not have evidence that it has reached the community transmission stage, measures need to be taken to prevent the virus spreading to a larger number of persons,” Dr. Jasinghe clarified. As an additional measure of precaution, the Ministry of Health has advised the public to completely refrain from participating in events where larger numbers of persons gather over the next 14 days.