Aug 20 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan shares ended lower on Friday after the government announced a 10-day lockdown as COVID-19 infections and deaths overwhelmed the island nation's health system.
* The CSE All-Share index closed 0.24% lower at 8,240.06 points, but clocked in a weekly gain of 3.05% - its first in four.
* The benchmark index, which rose as much as 0.67% earlier in the session, gave up gains with financial stocks offseting strength in the industrial sector.
* The island nation reported https://hpb.health.gov.lk/covid19-dashboard 186 fatalities due to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 6,790.
* Hospitals in Sri Lanka have been overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients as the highly transmissible Delta variant surges through the population. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is expected to address the country later in the day.
* About a quarter of Sri Lanka's population has been fully vaccinated, a majority of them with China's Sinopharm vaccine.
* Sri Lanka's largest non-banking financial institution LOLC Finance Plc and Commercial Leasing and Finance Plc were the top drags in the index, closing 8.3% and 4.6% lower, respectively.
* The Sri Lankan central bank on Thursday tightened its monetary policy - making it the first in Asia to raise interest rates since the pandemic began.
* Trading volume on the exchange dropped to 225.4 million shares from 310.9 million shares in the previous session.
* Foreign investors were net sellers in the equity market, offloading shares worth 771.1 million rupees, exchange data showed https://www.cse.lk/pages/daily-market-summary/daily-market-summary.component.html.
* The equity market's turnover was 5.61 billion rupees, according to the exchange's data.
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(Reporting by Shivani Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)