Sri Lanka banks on vaccination to see it through delta surge

When a 51-year-old tutor suffered a heart attack in Sri Lanka's capital, his friends and family were faced with a difficult problem

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Manjula Wijesuriya had COVID-19, but his friends and family say that's not what killed him. When the 51-year-old tutor suffered a heart attack in late July, his loved ones rushed him to a nearby hospital in a suburb of Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo. But as his condition deteriorated over the next few hours, they found it impossible to get him a bed in an intensive care unit. That's because a test confirmed Wijesuriya also had the coronavirus, and virus patients must be admitted to separate ICUs. All of them were occupied. The father to three died on Aug. 1 — a day after stepping foot inside the hospital. “It was a tragic death,” said his friend Tissa Janayake. “Even though he had COVID, he did not die because of it. He died because he did not receive treatment for the heart attack; he died because he could not get an ICU bed.”