500,000 doses of COVISHIELD vaccine to reach SL next week

Colombo (News 1st); Another 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca / COVISHIELD COVID-19 vaccine ordered from the Serum Institute of India will arrive in Sri Lanka next week, said the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation of Sri Lanka on Thursday (25).

SPC General Manager Dinusha Dissanayake said an additional batch of 500,000 doses will reach Sri Lanka in April 2021. Sri Lanka already received 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca / COVISHIELD COVID-19 vaccine from India. On Wednesday (24) 12,000 people were given the COVID-19 vaccine and a total of 856,327 people received the vaccine so far in Sri Lanka, said the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health. Sri Lanka on the 29th of January 2021 commenced its COVID-19 vaccination drive, a day after receiving a consignment of 500,000 doses of Covishield vaccines gifted by India. Also, UNICEF procured and delivered the first shipment of 264,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine on 7th March, as part of the first allocation of the 1.44 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX Facility to the Ministry of Health. Sri Lanka’s Drug Regulatory body in early March 2021 approved the Russian Sputnik V vaccine as the second available for use in the Indian Ocean island nation. The Cabinet of Ministers on 23rd March approved the proposal submitted by the Minister of Health to purchase 07 million Sputnik-V vaccines for USD 69.65 million upon the recommendation of the Cabinet Appointed Negotiation Committee. Sri Lanka’s National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA on 20th March approved China’s Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use in the island country. This is the third Covid-19 vaccine to be approved in the country after the AstraZeneca and Russia’s Sputnik V jabs.