AstraZeneca second dose to be rolled out from tomorrow

The second dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine will be administered from Wednesday (April 28), says State Minister of Production, Supply, and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals Prof. Channa Jayasumana.

Accordingly, the health sector workers are expected to first receive the second jab of AstraZeneca vaccine.

Sri Lanka’s vaccination drive kicked off on 29 January after Sri Lanka received a donation of 500,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute in India.

Meanwhile, State Pharmaceutical Corporation signed a purchase order with Serum Institute of India (SII) for 10 million doses of the vaccine for USD 52.5 million. A consignment of 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca, purchased as a direct procurement from the Serum Institute thereby arrived in Sri Lanka on February 25.

In addition, 264,000 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine provided under the COVAX facility of the World Health Organization (WHO) reached the island in early March.

Accordingly, Sri Lanka has received a total of 1,264,000 doses of the vaccine so far and more than 900,000 of those doses have already been administered.

However, India later cut back on its vaccine exports in order to meet the domestic demand following an unprecedented surge in the country’s COVID-19 infections and deaths. Foreign media reported that India’s new coronavirus cases have stayed above 300,000 for a sixth consecutive day on Tuesday.

The AstraZeneca vaccine recently came under fire after reports of blood clotting among those who received the jabs. Several countries including Norway, Thailand, Austria and Iceland temporarily suspended the rollout of AstraZeneca vaccine, but later resumed the procedure. Meanwhile, Denmark recently announced that it would permanently stop administering AstraZeneca jabs. Sri Lanka has also reported three deaths among six such cases of blood clotting. But the WHO has been backing the vaccine rollout as its benefits outweigh the risks.