Administration of Pfizer jabs as AstraZeneca’s second dose halted

Sri Lanka Army has halted administration of Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines as the second dose to those who received a shot of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine effective from today (July 08), says General Shavendra Silva.

The decision was taken as 1.4 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine are expected to arrive in Sri Lanka by 3rd week of this month, the Army Commander stated further.

Rolling out the first batch of Pfizer jabs Sri Lanka received on Monday (July 05) among people above the age of 55 years in Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) limits, who received the UK-developed vaccine as the first dose, began yesterday.

The Regional Epidemiologist CMC Dr. Dinuka Guruge tweeted that the appointments scheduled for today were accordingly cancelled.

A consignment of 26,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines purchased by the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation (SPC) arrived in Sri Lanka on Monday morning. Sri Lanka is expecting 26,000 more doses of Pfizer vaccine next week and another 60,000 and 90,000 more in the third and fourth weeks of July respectively.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry noted that there is a significant drop in the number of people over the age of 60 years getting themselves vaccinated against COVID-19.

Vaccinations are essential in mitigating the pandemic situation in the country, the ministry pointed out.

In the meantime, Director of Anuradhapura General Hospital Dr. Dulan Samaraweera stated that administering the first dose of Sinopharm vaccine to people above 60 years in Anuradhapura area will commence today.