5,972 people given COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday (23)

Colombo (News 1st); 5,972 people were given the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday (23), said the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health.

Accordingly, a total of 844,327 people were given the COVID-19 vaccine so far in Sri Lanka. (Statistics available at the end of 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 approved the Russian Sputnik V vaccine as the second available for use in the Indian Ocean island nation. 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. This is the third Covid-19 vaccine to be approved in the country after the AstraZeneca and Russia’s Sputnik V jabs. The Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal submitted by the Minister of Health to purchase 07 million Sputnik-V vaccines at a cost of USD 69.65 million upon the recommendation of the Cabinet Appointed Negotiation Committee.