COVID-19 Emergency Call Centre

Following the rapid outbreak of the global pandemic in Sri Lanka, a streamlined effort to handle the general public, foreign nationals and officials was in great need. Therefore, a 24-hour emergency call centre was set up at the Disaster Management Center (DMC) with immediate effect, where the 117 Disaster Management hotline was used. Director general of DMC provided this facility for COVID-19 response in liaison with Ministry of Health. In addition to the DMC emergency call operators, medical students too joined to provide medical advice and response to callers. Since infrastructure facilities were not sufficient for the immediate conversion in responding to CORVID-19 pandemic, A-PAD provided support to enhance the facility. The facility is efficiently functioning 24 hours a day.