The Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine has been rolled out among more than 1 million people in Sri Lanka, the Epidemiology Unit says.

According to its report on the progress of COVID immunization, 66,060 people on Wednesday (June 09) received the first dose of Sinopharm jab while 6,828 were administered the second dose.

Its cumulative total showed that as many as 1,099,092 individuals have received the first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine so far. Meanwhile, 6,994 have been fully vaccinated with the China-made jab.

In addition, 396 more people completed the coronavirus vaccination process as they received the second dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on Wednesday. The total number of people fully vaccinated with this jab now stands at to 354,651.

Sri Lanka ramped up coronavirus vaccination upon the receipt of 2 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine this week. One million jabs arrived in Colombo on Sunday (June 06), followed by another one million on Wednesday (June 09).

The national inoculation drive was subsequently extended to 12 more districts – Matale, Nuwara-Eliya, Kegalle, Trincomalee, Hambantota, Badulla, Anuradhapura, Puttalam, Ampara, Batticaloa, Monaragala and Polonnaruwa.

As per official data, China has so far sent a total of 3.1 million Sinopharm vaccines to Sri Lanka since the delivery of the first batch of 600,000 doses in late March this year.

The National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) approved the emergency use of Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine in the country on March 20. Sri Lanka also received a donation of 500,000 doses of the China-manufactured vaccine on May 26.

Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine, also known as BBIBP-CorV, is produced by China National Biotec Group (CNBG) – a subsidiary of China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation (SINOPHARM).