Colombo, March 13 (IANS): Sri Lanka's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Friday said it had temporarily halted passengers arriving from South Korea, Iran and Italy in a bid to prevent COVID-19 from spreading in the island country.

The government information department, in a statement said that as a result, the CAA had informed all airlines not to carry passengers to Sri Lanka from these three countries, and any other passenger who had travelled to these countries recently, Xinhua reported.

The ban will remain in place for two weeks.

"This is to inform all online carriers and offline carriers that according to the instructions received from the Health Department, all travel beginning from Iran, Italy and South Korea to Sri Lanka will be banned from March 14 for two weeks ending March 28," the government information department said.

Sri Lanka has confirmed two positive cases of COVID-19 and the Health Ministry has assured that all preventive measures were being taken to prevent a spread of the virus.