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Saturday Nov 23, 2024
Friday, 30 April 2021 03:23 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Over 5,000 persons in the country have received the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine over the course of two-days.
According to the Epidemiology Unit, 3,445 persons received the second dose of the AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine on Wednesday. Frontline health workers are the first to receive the second dose.
“The Sinopahrm vaccine was given to Chinese nationals working in Sri Lanka and 2,469 vaccines were administered as the first dose. The second dose was to be administered on Tuesday and Wednesday and 2,435 persons were vaccinated,” Chief Epidemiologist Dr. Sudath Samaraweera said.
A total of 1,693 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine were administered as a second dose on 27 April and 742 doses were administered the following day.
Sri Lanka received 600,000 doses of Sinopharm from China and will begin administration of the vaccine for Sri Lankans after the vaccine is approved by the World Health Organization, and the National Medicines Regulatory Authority approves it for emergency use in Sri Lanka. Concerns have been raised about vaccine shortages to administer the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine for the 925,242 persons who received the first dose between 29 January and 15 April.
According to Dr. Sudath Samaraweera, there can be no expectations of receiving the Covishield vaccine from India for the second dose in the near future given the situation in India. This included Covishield vaccines provided through the COVAX facility, he said.
“Studies are currently being carried out on mix-and-match vaccines, where the first dose is administered from one vaccine and the second dose is from another. If such studies find that a different vaccine can be administered and if we can bring down that vaccine to our country, we can administer it as the second dose,” Dr. Samaraweera said.
In response to a question on the number of persons who have received the first dose of the vaccine but contracted the virus, the Chief Epidemiologist said the number was between 65 and 75.
