ISHARA MUDUGAMUWA AND ASELA KURULUWANSA
COLOMBO : Production, Supply and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals State Minister Prof. Channa Jayasumana told the Daily News that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has agreed to re-imburse US$ 85 million spent by the Government to purchase Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines. Prof.Jayasumana said that the ADB has taken this decision considering the transparency in the purchase procedure of vaccines and the progress of the country’s COVID-19 vaccination drive.
As per Epidemiology Unit statistics, Sri Lanka has already administered 11,971,609 doses of Sinopharm vaccine as the first dose and another 10,999,976 doses as the second dose.
So far a total of 15,987,913 persons have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 13,836,707 have received the second dose. In addition 3,691,716 have received the booster dose.
Speaking at a media conference held in Kandy yesterday the State Minister said, it is gratifying to be able to recover 85 million US dollars at a time when the country is in a deficit of US dollars.
“The President told us to consider 2021 as the year of vaccination and take necessary action. We fulfilled the challenge and responsibility given to us with utmost responsibility and transparency. We have successfully implemented the COVID-19 vaccination program in the country.” he said.
The Government of Sri Lanka ordered 1.4 million Pfizer Vaccine doses as booster doses. The World Bank helped Sri Lanka get these vaccine doses. So there was no problem. Sri Lanka has already received 6.4 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and the remaining 76 million doses is scheduled to reach Sri Lanka in the second week of January.“There seems to be a lack of interest among the people to get the third dose. Currently, the Omicron variant is spreading rapidly around the world. I urge people to get the booster vaccine at the first opportunity not to be fooled by rumours,” he added.(CDN)
