Friday Sep 20, 2024
Friday Sep 20, 2024
Friday, 30 July 2021 03:36 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
National COVID-19 Vaccination Task Force Chairman and Principal Advisor to the President Lalith Weeratunga yesterday said that Sri Lanka won’t be getting an allocation under COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) sixth round by World Health Organisation (WHO) as there are more needy countries.
He said Sri Lanka’s coverage under COVAX has improved to 8% (amounting to 3.5 million doses) as against average of 5.6%. Of the doses pledged Sri Lanka has only got around 1.7 million doses which is 4% of the allocation.
“Sri Lanka has 8.1% population coverage through COVAX,” Weeratunga said quoting WHO. This is “while participants who receive allocations in round 6 have only reached an average of 5.6%,” he said. So when you put the country effort and the COVAX support, Sri Lanka is much ahead against the rest. Sri Lank was placed right at the top until recently until Ecuador just overtook in terms of number of persons vaccinated per 100 of the population. With rapid vaccinations of almost 1 million in recent days, Sri Lanka is likely to have re-emerged as number one.
Weeratunga said according to a recent report, over 90% of the vaccines have been shared among the wealthiest countries in the world while only less than 5% of global vaccines have been distributed among the developing countries. “Therefore, the progress made by Sri Lanka in acquiring vaccine stocks is a great accomplishment,” he added.
He said Sri Lanka’s coverage under COVAX has improved to 8% (amounting to 3.5 million doses) as against average of 5.6%. Of the doses pledged Sri Lanka has only got around 1.7 million doses which is 4% of the allocation.
“Sri Lanka has 8.1% population coverage through COVAX,” Weeratunga said quoting WHO. This is “while participants who receive allocations in round 6 have only reached an average of 5.6%,” he said. So when you put the country effort and the COVAX support, Sri Lanka is much ahead against the rest. Sri Lank was placed right at the top until recently until Ecuador just overtook in terms of number of persons vaccinated per 100 of the population. With rapid vaccinations of almost 1 million in recent days, Sri Lanka is likely to have re-emerged as number one.
