With three parliamentarians testing positive for COVID-19 on Friday (06), bringing total legislators infected in Sri Lanka to at least 18 to date, concerns have been raised over the possibility of a “parliament cluster”.
Ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) legislators Rohana Dissanayaka (Matale district) and Thisakutti Arachchi (Badulla district) along with main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Dilip Wedaarachchi tested positive for the virus on Friday, Serjeant-at- Arms Narendra Fernando said.
Two sources at the parliament told EconomyNext that concerns have been raised if the latest infections could result in a “parliament cluster”. The sources said all three MPs had been in the parliament during this week’s sessions with one legislator participating three full days.
“There was a general announcement in the parliament today asking MPs and other staff to take maximum precaution if they have had contacts with the three,” one source who did not wish to be named said.
“CCTV footage shows one MP move around in the parliament,” the source said.
Friday’s infections come three days after Agriculture Minister and Kandy district MP Mahindananda Aluthgamage, who had earlier vowed not to be vaccinated until vulnerable groups have been jabbed, tested positive for COVID-19 while being in self isolation.
Sri Lanka’s parliamentarians were asked to get vaccinated with AstraZeneca in mid-February at the Army hospital in Colombo though some legislators including opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, Minister Aluthgamage, and SJB MP Mujibur Rahuman vowed not to take the jab until vulnerable groups had first been vaccinated.
Both Premadasa and Rahuman tested positive in May. Premadasa on Tuesday (03) said “under the strict instructions of doctors who treated” him for COVID-19, he got the Pfizer-BioNTech jab. This was after doctors had warned him that failure to vaccinate may result in a fatal recurrence of COVID-19.
“Now we have become a country gradually succumbing to COVID-19,” Rahuman told parliament on Friday.
COVID infection among Sri Lankan legislators made international headlines when the island nation’s health minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi tested positive in January after promoting a local syrup manufactured by a shaman who claimed it was a life-long inoculation against the virus that would forgo the need for vaccination.
The health minister publicly consumed and endorsed the syrup while the shaman was allowed to enter the parliament premises and handover his syrup to the parliament speaker. The shaman had said the recipe for the syrup, which contained honey and nutmeg, was given to him in a visionary dream.
The health minister’s promotion, which was given huge publicity in the local media, led thousands of people queueing in front of the shaman’s house in the central Sri Lankan district of Kegalle.
“Some government ministers said we don’t need vaccines. But ultimately the government was forced to bring down vaccines because there was no alternative,” Rahuman told parliament on Friday.
Cabinet Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara, State Ministers Dayasiri Jayasekara, Piyal Nishantha, and Arundika Fernando, ruling SLPP legislators Kader Masthan, Kapila Athukorala, M Rameshwaran, and Wasantha Yapa Bandara as well as opposition MPs Rauf Hakeem, Nalin Bandara, and Abdul Haleem were the other parliamentarians who have got infected by the virus.
All of them have recovered and are back in the parliament.
Meanwhile, Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila and Industries Minister Wimal Weerawansa are in self quarantine after their close contacts recently tested positive for the virus.