Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said there was an urgent need for strengthening mutual understanding and relations between Asian countries to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Asia must expand relations between nations, especially globally. The Covid pandemic around the world is claiming a large number of lives and has had a devastating effect on economic activity around the world,” Rajapaksa said addressing virtually an international conference on The Future of Asia

He underscored that all nations should come together at a time when no country was in a position to singlehandedly face the unprecedented challenge created by the pandemic.

“The epidemic ignores national boundaries. If the virus is allowed to spread uncontrollably anywhere in the world, the progress already made through vaccination elsewhere could be threatened and fatally affected. So speed is very important,” Rajapaksa was quoted as saying by ColomboPage.

The president suggested increasing the production capacity of vaccines and creation of a mechanism to make the vaccines available globally shortly.

(SAM)