He said this today (25) responding to a question raised by a journalist regarding the current status of Sri Lanka's vaccine policy during the cabinet decision media briefing held at the Department of Government Information.

Minister Pathirana elaborated that, as the Government had to experience major difficulty in relation to obtaining more AstraZeneca vaccine due to the setbacks encountered by the Serum Institute of India such as the increase in the number of Covid-19 patients in India as well as the fire that broke out in their factory; these incidents have made it difficult for them to match the demands for the vaccine.

Therefore, given the current inability to gain sufficient quantities of AstraZeneca vaccine, the Sri Lankan government has made arrangements to source Sinopharm vaccine as well as Sputnik V Vaccine whilst prioritizing the Government's aim of vaccinating more people as possible at the earliest.

He further mentioned that the Government is awaiting to gain the remaining six hundred thousand doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine for the second dose but they have not yet received any confirmation in this regard.