COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) – The President of Sri Lanka on Thursday welcomed the first 500,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine from India, which donated the shots to eight countries in the region.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.
Sri Lanka said 150,000 health workers and 115,000 selected soldiers and police officers will be the first to be inoculated in six hospitals in Colombo and its suburbs.
One of the hospitals is reserved for patients with COVID-19, while the others have separate coronavirus wards.
The Ministry of Health intends to expand the vaccination campaign next week to 4,000 hospitals and health centers in other parts of the country.
India’s donation covers 250,000 people, and Sri Lanka is working to obtain more vaccines, either by donation or by purchasing them.
The country has ordered 2 million doses of Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine and plans to order another 3 million from India. It is also expected that some UN COVAX facilities will be able to vaccinate 20% of the population.
Sri Lanka has faced a new outbreak of disease since October, when two clusters – one centered on a garment factory and the other on the main fish market – have appeared in and around Colombo. Since then, it has reported more than 55,000 cases and 260 deaths. An average of 500-900 cases are reported daily.
“India played the leading respondent in the region,” India’s foreign ministry said in a statement, while President Gotabaya Rajapaksa received the first batch of vaccines at the airport.
India also said it had extended a $ 400 million currency swap facility to Sri Lanka to ensure the financial stability of its neighbor during the pandemic.
China, India’s rival, announced on Wednesday that it would provide 300,000 photos with its own Sinopharm vaccine next month after the completion of procedures on both sides.