The Morning reported earlier that the Ministry of Health has set aside a stock of 200,000 doses of Covishield for the administration of the second dose. Meanwhile, The Morning learnt from the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation (SPC) that there has been no date confirmed for the arrival of the next stock of 500,000 Covishield doses that the Government has ordered from the Serum Institute of India (SII). So far, Sri Lanka has received 1.264 million of the SII’s Oxford Astra-Zeneca Covishield vaccine, and 500,000 of these doses were procured by the SPC. The first 500,000 doses came as a donation under India’s “Vaccine Maitri” programme and 264,000 doses came under the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) Covax Facility. A total of 925,242 Sri Lankans were vaccinated with their first dose of Covishield by 10 April, at which point the vaccination was temporarily halted.

Source: The Nation April 17, 2021 03:56 UTC