1.5 million doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine has arrived in Sri Lanka this morning.
A chartered plane arrived in Sri Lanka this morning with more than 1.5 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from the COVAX Facility.
Donated by the United States, the 1,500,100 doses of the vaccine come to Sri Lanka under the dose-sharing mechanism of COVAX facility promote equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines across the globe.
The Health Minister Pavithra Wanniaracchi said that, “The Government of Sri Lanka would like to commend the United States for taking the lead in sharing these doses with the people of Sri Lanka”.
“This will add momentum to our ongoing efforts to protect our people from the pandemic through vaccination. The pandemic is not confined to a single country, therefore this kind of mutual support will strengthen the global efforts in combating COVID 19 pandemic”, she added.
For her part, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka, Hanaa Singer-Hamdy, said, “across the world, the United Nations is supporting countries to mobilize the largest global immunization effort in history. Human innovation and science have succeeded in providing us with safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines. for everyone. Thanks to the generous support of the United States through the COVAX facility to vaccinate Sri Lankans, the UN in Sri Lanka alongside our Agencies WHO and UNICEF will continue to work with the Government to stem the spread of COVID-19 and recover from the pandemic.”
Sri Lanka is currently rolling out vaccinations against COVID-19 for eligible groups, in line with the National Vaccine Deployment Plan of the Ministry of Health (MOH). Today’s shipment of vaccines is the second from COVAX following the delivery in March of the first batch of 264,000 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca ‘Covishield’ vaccines.