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By Shailendree Wickrama Adittiya
The Government yesterday said it was working to distribute oxygen to key hospitals, with 28 already receiving oxygen tanks, and reiterated it was on track to fully vaccinate 60% of the population by the end of 2021, with 26.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines due to arrive by December.
In response to questions raised about the COVID-19 immunisation program in Parliament, Health Minister Pavithradevi Wanniarachchi said 13 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine in batches were expected by the end of the year.
In addition to this, 8.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX facility are due by June and an order has been placed for five million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
“Our policy is COVID-19 control without economic collapse, because if the country’s economy collapses, we will not have the funds for COVID-19 treatment, PCR tests, or transport to hospitals,” she said.
According to Pharmaceutical Production, Supply and Regulation State Minister Channa Jayasumana, discussions are being held with several countries including Indonesia to purchase at least 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to administer the second dose to all 925,242 persons who received the first dose between 29 January and 15 April.
At present, 139,286 persons who received the AstraZeneca vaccine have been fully vaccinated.
With regard to the 600,000 doses of Sinopharm the country received from China, Jayasumana said he had appealed to the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) on Tuesday as well to analyse data once again and approve it for use for Sri Lankans.
The State Minister also outlined measures taken by the Government thus far in response to the COVID-19 situation in the country.
No shortages of oxygen for medical use have been reported thus far, he said, adding that an order had been placed for 4,000 jumbo cylinders to be received in the coming weeks.
“Without placing our faith in cylinders alone, we are also taking measures to provide main hospitals with large-scale tanks for liquid oxygen,” he said.
According to Jayasumana, 28 main hospitals in the last two weeks received tanks and another 12 hospitals are due to receive tanks for liquid oxygen.
He added that 40,000 litres of liquid oxygen were produced daily by both Ceylon Oxygen and Gas World. A project has also been carried out to enable nine hospitals in the Northern and Eastern Provinces to produce 3,780 litres of liquid oxygen a day.
He added that measures had been taken to ensure there was sufficient oxygen for medical use even if the COVID-19 detections multiplied in future. In addition to this, discussions have also been held with Singapore on the supply of liquid oxygen if the need arises.
Jayasumana also stressed that all measures were being taken to ensure the Indian variant of COVID-19 would not enter the island. The variant has not yet been detected in Sri Lanka.
In response to criticism that the Government failed to act on time despite knowledge of the B117 UK variant being detected in the island during the first week of April, Jayasumana explained that all measures were taken.
“By 8 April, the Immunology and Molecular Medicine Department of the Sri Jayewardenepura University informed us that five workers from a site in Boralasgamuwa had tested positive for COVID-19 and that a difference had been detected in comparison to the virus seen previously,” he said.
Expanding contract tracing beyond first and second contacts, 800 contacts of the workers were tested and none of the contacts were found to be COVID-19 positive.
The difference seen in the samples collected from Boralasgamuwa is known as the S-gene drop. The S-gene drop is seen in at least three instances, Jayasumana said, pointing to the B117 UK variant and the Nigerian variant as examples. Thus, the detection of the S-gene drop alone was not sufficient to identify the virus as the UK variant. For this, gene sequencing had to be carried out.
“We received the results of this process on 28 April. It took 20 days for it and during this period, the virus had spread from a few other unidentified places,” Jayasumana added.
