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Ebola: Plans to bring back Lankans
Some 200 Sri Lankans working in Western African countries hit by the Ebola virus epidemic are to be evacuated immediately, a senior Foreign Employment Bureau official said yesterday. FEB General Manager H. Batagoda said they were making arrangements to bring back the Sri Lankans, mainly female workers in garment factories, from the four countries which have been hit by the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
“We are collecting information on the whereabouts of the Sri Lankans. We will arrange the flights to bring them back once we locate them,” he said amid reports that the epidemic had killed about 1,000 people while more than 1,700 others were suffering from it in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Guinea. Foreign Employment Minister Dilan Perera, now on a visit to South Korea, tweeted that moves were underway to bring back the Sri Lankans from the affected countries.
As a precaution to travellers, leaflets with details regarding the virus are being distributed at the Bandaranaike International Airport. In another measure, a 24-hour medical unit has been set up at the airport to check possible carriers of the virus. Dr. L. B. H. Denuwara, the Health Ministry’s director in charge of quarantine, said the airport medical unit would work together with the Immigration Department to identify high risk passengers and send them to the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH) in Angoda for treatment.