Another 500,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s COVISHIELD coronavirus vaccines manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) are expected to arrive on the island within the next two weeks, says Senior Advisor to President, Lalith Weeratunga.

His remarks came during a media briefing held on Wednesday.

Sri Lanka’s inoculation drive kicked off on 29 January after 500,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute were donated by India.

A consignment of 500,000 vaccine doses purchased from the Serum Institute meanwhile arrived in the country on February 25.

Mr. Weeratunga said Sri Lanka has placed a purchase order for 1.5 million doses of COVISHIELD vaccines from India.

Cabinet Spokesperson Minister Ramesh Pathirana recently stated that there could be a slight delay in the delivery of the one million doses of the vaccine ordered from the Serum Institute due to a fire that broke at a building of the manufacturing plant.

In the meantime, 264,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine were delivered by the World Health Organization (WHO) under its COVAX facility, on March 07.

The vaccines were purchased by UNICEF and made available to Sri Lanka through the COVAX facility.

COVAX facility is a global initiative that brings together governments and manufacturers to ensure equal distribution among the countries, subsequently to the manufacturing of secure and effective COVID-19 vaccines. It was launched by Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and the WHO to ensure access for COVID-19 shots to poor and middle-income countries.

As per Epidemiology Unit’s statistics, Sri Lanka has administered the vaccines to a total of 752,298 people as of yesterday.