COVID-19 vaccine administered to 4,697 people on Saturday (20)

Colombo (News 1st); The COVID-19 vaccine was administered to 4,697 people on Saturday (20), said the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health.

According to statistics a total of 829,220 people were given the COVID-19 vaccine so far in Sri Lanka. (Full Statistics can be found at the end the report) 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. Three Army personnel and a senior doctor received the first jabs, marking the launch of the roll-out at six main hospitals in Sri Lanka’s Western Province. Sri Lanka first administered the COVISHIELD vaccine which is the product of Serum Institute of India (SII) and is the same AstraZeneca (ChAdOx1nCoV-19 Corona Virus Vaccine-Recombinant) vaccine. Sri Lanka's drug regulatory body in early March 2021 has approved the Russian Sputnik V vaccine as the second available for use in the Indian Ocean island nation. The state minister overseeing pharmaceutical products, Channa Jayasumana, said Sri Lanka has requested doses from Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute In addition, 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 National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) on Saturday (20) approved China's Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use in the island country. According to State Minister of Production, Supply and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals Channa Jayasumana, this is the third Covid-19 vaccine to be approved in the country after the AstraZeneca and Russia's Sputnik V jabs.