Sri Lankan ‘has the funds required to obtain vaccines’

COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government has the funds required to obtain the COVID-19 vaccines, said Mass Media Minister and Government Spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella.

He said the problem at present was that global vaccine production was not able to meet the existing demand.

Rambukwella said that 193 countries are currently trying to obtain the required number of vaccines while 51 of these countries have not yet received even a single vaccine dose.

Minister Rambukwella was speaking to the media after a meeting on COVID control measures held at the Central Provincial Governor’s Office.

The minister said that some people were trying to scuttle the Government’s COVID control efforts through false propaganda and appealed to the people not to get misled.

He said that 50,000 Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine doses would be delivered to Sri Lanka this week, followed by another one million doses in the first week of next month.

“At present, the Kandy district is a high risk area for the pandemic,” he said, adding that the COVID-19 vaccination program will start in Kandy shortly.