Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism Minister Vijitha Herath has signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Health Care with Belarusian Health Minister Aliaksandr Khajayeu in Minsk, marking a new track in bilateral cooperation that has so far focused on trade, air services and tourism.
The MoU covers medical education, healthcare services and research, the minister said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) reported by Ada Derana. Herath added that he visited the Belarusian State Medical University in Minsk and met the rectors of the Belarusian State Medical University and its Vitebsk, Grodno and Gomel counterparts, where over 3,000 Sri Lankan medical students are currently enrolled.
The 3,000-plus student cohort is one of the largest concentrations of Sri Lankan undergraduate medical trainees abroad and gives the health MoU an unusual practical anchor — equivalence of qualifications and clinical-rotation arrangements are recurring issues for graduates returning home to register with the Sri Lanka Medical Council.
The agreement is the second concrete deliverable from Herath’s Minsk visit, following the May 15 Sri Lanka–Belarus Business Roundtable on trade and tourism and the May 14 bilateral pact on air services and several technical MoUs. Herath has been in Belarus since May 12 under an official visit programme that included a courtesy call on President Alexander Lukashenko.
