COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) – The President of Sri Lanka welcomed Thursday’s first 500,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine from India, which donated the vaccines to eight countries in the region.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.
Sri Lanka said 150,000 health workers and 115,000 selected military and police personnel will be the first to be vaccinated at six hospitals in Colombo and its suburbs.
One of the hospitals is reserved for COVID-19 patients, while the others have separate coronavirus wards.
The Ministry of Health plans to expand the vaccination campaign to 4,000 hospitals and health centers in other parts of the country next week.
The donation from India covers 250,000 people and Sri Lanka is striving to obtain more vaccines, either through donation or purchase.
The country has ordered 2 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine and plans to order another 3 million from India. He also hopes that some members of the UN COVAX Facility will be able to vaccinate 20% of the population.
Sri Lanka has faced a new outbreak of the disease since October, when two groups – one centered in a clothing factory and the other in the main fish market – emerged in and around Colombo. Since then, it has recorded more than 55,000 cases and 260 deaths. An average of 500-900 cases are reported daily.
“India played the first response role in the region,” India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, while President Gotabaya Rajapaksa received the first batch of vaccines at the airport.
India also said it had extended a $ 400 million currency swap line to Sri Lanka to ensure its neighbor’s financial stability during the pandemic.
India’s rival, China, announced on Wednesday that it would supply 300,000 doses of its own Sinopharm vaccine next month after the completion of procedures on both sides.