Sri Lanka to acquire Sinopharm, Pfizer, Moderna, Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines in July
COLOMBO – Sri Lanka expects to receive a range of vaccines against COVID-19 in July in varying numbers of doses, officials said, amid uncertainty about the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine and doubt about the efficacy of certain vaccines against the highly transmissible Delta variant.
Secretary, State Ministry of Production, Supply and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Saman Ratnayake, said one million more doses of the Chinese Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine will arrive in the country on July 6.
Ratnayake said Sri Lanka has also sent a schedule to acquire the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, with a consignment expected to arrive in due course, though a date has yet to be confirmed.
So far Sri Lanka has obtained 1,264,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine, 130,000 doses of Sputnik V and 3.1 million doses of Sinopharm.
Ratnayake said a consignment of the Pfizer-BionTech jab is also expected to arrive on July 5, though the number of doses has yet to be finalized.
State Minister of Production, Supply and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals, Channa Jayasumana, told reporters on Sunday (27). that Sri Lanka will receive Sinovac, the second China-manufactured COVID-19 vaccine, in the first two weeks of July. A batch of the US-manufactured Moderna jab is also expected to arrive in the same period, he said.
Minister of Health, Pavithra Wanniarachchi, told Parliament on June 23 the government has allocated US$ 129.35 million for Sputnik V, US$ 33.7 million for Pfizer, US$ 52.5 million for Covishield and US$ 210 million for Sinopharm vaccines.
Meanwhile, Sri Lankan pharmaceutical company, Kelun Life Science, said their manufacturing plant in the Kandy export processing zone will be dedicated to filling the Sinovac vaccine in Sri Lanka in the near future.
Quality Assurance Manager of Kelun Life Science, Gayathri Ariyasinghe, told a private television channel on Monday (27), the solution of the vaccine will be imported from China in bulk and will be filled into vials in Sri Lanka.
“At the moment we are doing trial runs with the machine,” Ariyasinghe said.
The company’s Quality Control Manager, Sajani Wijeratne, said that upon receiving the solution in bulk by the State Pharmaceutical Corporation (SPC), it will be sent to the Kelun plant and will go through a quality testing process before sent for filling.
“Sinovac is the vaccine that is being tested for most variants of the COVID-19 virus” Wijeratne claimed.
However, Reuters, quoting a Chinese disease control centre official, reported on Friday (25), that antibodies triggered by the two Chinese COVID-19 vaccines including Sinovac are less effective against the Delta variant compared with other strains, but the shots still offer protection.
Sri Lanka has detected at least five cases of the deadly strain in the community so far.
Wijeratne said in July a specialist team from the World Health Organization (WHO) will be coming to Sri Lanka to inspect and audit the filling process to give the approval to continue filling.
“We expect to produce six million doses by August 2021 and seven million doses by September,” Wijeratne said.
“By bringing in bulk we have a great advantage economically. We will save around 30% of the cost we spend to bring in doses and also we won’t need to wait for a vaccine,” he added.
Sri Lanka currently uses three COVID-19 vaccines in the country’s COVID-19 immunization drive.
So far the second dose of the Covishiled vaccine has been given to only 372,868 out of 925,242 who received the first dose.
Minister Wanniarachchi said some 582,000 more are awaiting the second dose of the vaccine.
The first dose of Sinopharm meanwhile has been administered to 1,533,780 people so far, while 492,850 have received the second dose as of Sunday.
The first dose of Sputnik V has been given to 114,795 so far, while 14,425 have received the second dose as of Sunday
So far Sri Lanka has spent Rs 41.5 million for COVID-19 vaccination, official data showed.
-economynext.com