4m doses of Sinopharm vaccines arrive in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO - Sri Lankan authorities on Saturday received 4 million doses of Sinopharm vaccines shipped from China as a mass scale vaccination program against the COVID-19 is presently underway in the country.

The vaccines arrived at Colombo's Bandaranaike International Airport onboard two Sri Lankan Airlines flights from Beijing, capital of China.

Officials said the consignment was taken to the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation (SPC)'s main warehouse complex by vehicles with freezer facilities.

The Chinese Embassy in Colombo said that the arrival of this consignment of vaccines was the final batch in the contract signed by Sri Lanka's SPC and with this, 26 million Sinopharm vaccines have arrived in Sri Lanka to date.

This has supported more than 80 percent of Sri Lanka's vaccination drive, the Chinese Embassy said.

Official statistics showed that the Sinopharm vaccine was the leading vaccine used across the country with 10,886,678 doses administered as the first dose till Friday and 8,973,670 administered as the second dose.

Other vaccines being administered are AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Sputnik V.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa earlier this month instructed authorities to complete vaccinating those above the age of 30 by this month. The country has to date detected 500,772 positive COVID-19 patients since March last year and reported 11,938 deaths.