President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka spoke via telephone on Saturday, to discuss the Covid-19 crisis affecting the entire world.

While the two leaders briefed each other on the impacts of this global crisis on their respective countries, they also discussed the precautionary measures that have been implemented to curb the spread of the virus.

Both leaders discussed the unprecedented challenges posed by how fast the virus is spreading, to the well-being of citizens in both Maldives and Sri Lanka.

As such, they highlighted steps and measures being implemented to ensure that their facilities do not become overwhelmed, which is already being observed in highly-affected countries such as Italy and the U.S.

They went on to shed light on the importance of precautionary measures such as physical and social distancing and ensuring that there are beds and adequate equipment in place for a potential exponential increase in patients.

Further, both President Solih and PM Rajapaksa acknowledged the impacts of international travel restrictions and necessary measures being taken to ensure social distancing is being followed by communities.

Both leaders stressed on the importance of the tourism sector to both countries.

They also emphasized on the need for strong bilateral and regional cooperation to meet this challenge.