A Special Health Protection Program has been formulated by the Health Ministry to ensure the health of about over one million people who have been affected by the recent floods.

Special measures will be taken to ensure the health of the affected in the Polonnaruwa, Ampara, Batticaloa, Anuradhapura, Vavuniya, Matale, Kandy, Badulla and Nuwara Eliya districts.

According to Disaster Management Center around 1,243,478 people in 18 districts have been affected by floods. Eleven deaths have been reported so far while 250,501 people have been displaced from their homes.

The Army and Navy have deployed relief teams in the affected districts.

Arrangements have been made by the government and voluntary organisations to supply cooked meals to the affected. The government has also taken measures to provide dry rations for the flood affected people for six months. The flood affected can collect their dry rations from the cooperative stores of their respective villages.

The United Nations said its agencies are providing additional support to the Sri Lankan government to respond to fresh floods while the relief efforts for the hundreds of thousands of people affected by earlier flooding are continuing.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has dispatched a total of 508 metric tons of food rations to the districts of Batticaloa, Ampara, and Trincomalee.

Meanwhile, all schools in the North Central Province will be closed today and tomorrow due to prevailing bad weather conditions.

All the schools in Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts will be closed for three days from today.