Sri Lanka to procure two to three million Covishield doses
(Sourced from PTI)
Sri Lanka will purchase two to three million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, Covishield, from its Indian manufacturing company Serum Institute of India during the next two days, Lalith Weeratunga, the advisor to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said on Wednesday. He said that the purchase from India will follow Thursday's arrival of India's free vaccines to Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka has recorded nearly 60,000 COVID-19 cases till January 26, with 288 deaths from the pandemic since it was found in the island nation in mid-March last year.
Weeratunga said that the Indian Covishield vaccine is to arrive tomorrow and the consignment will be accepted by President Rajapaksa at the Colombo International Airport. A total of 250,000 people, mostly health frontline workers, members of the security forces and police, and the vulnerable aged will get the vaccine on a priority basis.
The vaccination program for which dry runs were made over the weekend will commence on Friday. Weeratunga further said that 300,000 free COVID-19 vaccines from China are due and the government would also be requesting Russia for the vaccine.
In the last few days, India, one of the world's biggest drugmakers, has sent consignments of domestically produced coronavirus vaccines under grant assistance to Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Mauritius, and Seychelles. It is also undertaking commercial supplies of the doses to several countries, including Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, and Morocco.
