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Persons will be considered as fully vaccinated against COVID-19 only if they have received the booster dose as well, Health Minister Dr. Keheliya Rambukwella said yesterday.
He added that regulations would be introduced making it mandatory for persons to be fully vaccinated when entering public places as soon as the relevant mobile application and QR code are developed.
Meanwhile, Pharmaceutical Production, Supply and Regulation State Minister Prof. Channa Jayasumana said they hoped to complete administering the booster dose by July. This is due to the fact that the Pfizer vaccines purchased to administer the booster dose will start expiring starting July.
“We ordered 14 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine for the booster dose but only around five million of these have been administered,” he added.
While health officials continue to urge the public to get the booster dose, only 7,987 persons were vaccinated on Sunday.
According to the Epidemiology Unit, 7,299 persons received the booster dose on Sunday. The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is being administered as the booster and 4,925,961 persons have received the third dose to date.
The first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine has been administered to 16,421,857 persons and the second dose has been administered to 13,883,801 persons.
According to Our World in Data, Sri Lanka’s first dose coverage is 76.38% of the population and second dose coverage is 64.58%.
On Sunday, 338 persons received the first dose of Pfizer and 80 persons received the second dose of the vaccine. In total, the first dose of Pfizer has been administered to 1,991,150 persons and the second dose has been administered to 487,824 persons.
Seventy persons received the first dose of Sinopharm on Sunday and 200 persons received the second dose of the vaccine. According to the Epidemiology Unit, 11,987,165 persons have received the first dose of Sinopharm and 11,034,211 persons have received the second dose of Sinopharm.
The first dose of AstraZeneca has been administered to 1,479,631 persons and the second dose has been administered to 1,418,593 persons.
The Epidemiology Unit states that 804,801 persons have received the first dose of Moderna and 787,361 persons have received the second dose of the vaccine.
The first dose of Sputnik V has been administered to 159,110 persons and 155,812 persons have received the second dose of the vaccine.