Sri Lanka’s super spreader speaks up

For months he's been anonymous, but now Prasad Dinesh, linked by Sri Lankan authorities to nearly half of the country's more than 2,600 coronavirus cases, is trying to clear his name, and shed some of the stigma of a heroin addiction at the root of his ordeal.

After Dinesh, 33, tested positive for the virus in April, navy sailors raided his village, forcing his contacts into quarantine. But authorities have blamed a melee that ensued not on the military, but on Dinesh - and said the rumpus ended up leading to at least 1,100 additional virus infections.

These cases, they publicly declared, were all linked linked to a single patient.

Referring to him only as "Patient 206," government officials lambasted Dinesh on TV and social media, blaming him for at least three clusters of cases.

Dinesh, however, says his drug addiction, which is considered a crime in Sri Lanka, makes him a convenient scapegoat.

Authorities say that on April 5, Dinesh was caught by village residents for a robbery and handed over to police. At the station, Dinesh had a fever as well as a leg injury sustained during the robbery, so authorities admitted him to a nearby hospital, where he tested positive for the coronavirus.

After he tested positive, the police who made the arrest, Dinesh's friends and more than 100 people in his neighbourhood were ordered to quarantine at home.

Afraid that the virus would spread quickly in the congested area, Sri Lanka's navy sent in a team of sailors to help health workers.

With the virus spreading to different parts of the country where sailors were on leave, authorities ordered troops from all arms of the military to report back to their camps.

Some 4,000 navy sailors were quarantined inside a single camp. At least 15 villages were isolated in different parts of Sri Lanka for about two weeks, and about 1,300 other people underwent self-quarantine.

Ultimately, about 900 navy sailors tested positive, with around 50 other infected people also part of that cluster. Two other clusters also blamed on Dinesh had at least 150 coronavirus cases, according to authorities.