Sri Lanka gets 5 lakh COVID vaccine doses from India; Lankan Prez thanks Indians & PM Modi

Sri Lanka on Thursday welcomed the first 500,000 doses of a Covid-19 vaccine from India, which has donated the shots to eight countries in the region. Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar announced on Twitter about the Coronavirus vaccine doses that reached Sri Lanka. 

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Sr Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa took to Twitter and confirmed that his country has received 500,000 vaccine doses and also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and every Indian. 

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On Wednesday, Lalith Weeratunga, the advisor to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had said that purchasing from India will follow Thursday’s arrival of India’s free vaccines to Sri Lanka. He had also said that the Indian Covishield vaccine is to arrive on Thursday and the consignment will be accepted by President Rajapaksa at the Colombo International Airport.

250,000 people priority in Sri Lanka

A total of 250,000 people, mostly health frontline workers, members of the security forces and police, and the vulnerable aged will get the vaccine on a priority basis. The vaccination programme for which dry runs were made over the weekend will commence on Friday. Weeratunga had added that 300,000 free vaccines from China are also due and the government would be requesting Russia also for the vaccine.

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Sri Lanka has recorded a near 60,000 cases till January 26, with 288 deaths from the pandemic since it was found in the island nation in mid-March last year. India is one of the world's biggest drugmakers and an increasing number of countries have already approached it for procuring coronavirus vaccines.

India has earlier sent consignments of domestically produced coronavirus vaccines under grant assistance to Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Mauritius, and Seychelles.

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