Nearly 160 Sri Lankans repatriated from Kuwait last week have tested positive for coronavirus and one returnee has died, officials said Wednesday, with concern mounting about imported infections just as the nation eases its lockdown.<\/p>\n
A total of 460 men and women \u2013 who were mostly working illegally in Kuwait as domestic helpers or laborers \u2013 lost their jobs during the coronavirus shutdowns and returned to Sri Lanka on flights sponsored by the Kuwaiti government.<\/p>\n
While not all test results are known, some 156 have been found infected, officials said, and a 51-year-old woman died Monday. Another 270 Sri Lankans touched down from Qatar Wednesday and were also taken to quarantine centers for testing, according to officials. \u201cOur worry is imported cases,\u201d said health ministry director Paba Palihawadana. \u201cWhen they came here, they were already infected. We don\u2019t have any infections reported from within our community in the past 28 days.”<\/p>\n
Some 38,000 of around 1.5 million Sri Lankans employed abroad had registered with authorities asking to return home, officials said. Sri Lanka has reported 1,319 infections \u2014 including the returnees \u2013 and 10 deaths since the first virus case was detected on Jan 27.<\/p>\n
A lockdown, imposed on March 20, was eased on Tuesday after the government said the virus was under control, but an overnight curfew remains in place.<\/p>\n
Source: AFP<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nearly 160 Sri Lankans repatriated from Kuwait last week have tested positive for coronavirus and one returnee has died, officials said Wednesday, with concern mounting about imported infections just as the nation eases its lockdown. A total of 460 men and women \u2013 who were mostly working illegally in Kuwait as domestic helpers or laborers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,3090,2],"tags":[3086,60,3808,3393],"class_list":["post-46077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-coronavirus","category-featured","tag-coronavirus","tag-kuwait","tag-lankans","tag-repatriation"],"yoast_head":"\n