COLOMBO (News 1st); The Delta COVID-19 variant will have a major impact on Sri Lanka, warned Professor Malik Peiris at University of Hong Kong. Speaking during a virtual event on Saturday (31) to launch a book titled “COVID-19: Impact, mitigation, opportunities and building resilience”, virologist Professor Malik Peiris at University of Hong Kong said that Sri Lanka will experience the worse COVID-19 outbreak in the months ahead. Professor Malik Peiris is a clinical and public health virologist with a particular interest in emerging virus disease at the animal-human interface including influenza, coronaviruses and others. In 2003, Prof. Peiris played a key role in the discovery that a novel coronavirus was the cause of SARS, its diagnosis and pathogenesis. “Although there was an initial decline globally and also in the south east Asian region, there has been a resurgence of cases globally including in the south Asian region and this is primarily due to the new variant which is the delta variant and this variant of course played havoc in India and I’m afraid I have to say that it is going to have a major impact on Sri Lanka in the coming weeks,” he warned.

Source: The Nation August 01, 2021 03:00 UTC