Administration of the much-awaited second dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine commenced yesterday and vaccination will continue for a week at 20 centres in Western Province.

This includes two centres run by the Sri Lanka Army which will operate around the clock. The vaccination centre at Vihara Maha Devi Park’s open-air theatre will be in operation today, while the centre at Diyatha Uyana will be in operation until Wednesday.

Sri Lanka on Saturday received 728,460 vaccine doses through the COVAX Facility. The doses were donated by Japan. This is sufficient to vaccinate all persons awaiting the second dose of AstraZeneca. The first dose of the vaccine was administered to 925,242 persons but only 385,885 persons received the second dose.

A consignment of 727,380 doses of AstraZeneca are due in the coming week.

The Health Ministry said that the extra doses of AstraZeneca will be used in Kegalle District, where only 21.7% of the population over 30 has received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 10.7% of the population over 30 has received both doses.

According to the Epidemiology Unit, 86.5% of the country’s eligible population had received the first dose of the vaccine and 18.7% had received both doses as of Saturday.

The first dose has been administered to 100% of the population over 30 in the Colombo, Gampaha, Polonnaruwa and Matale Districts and 35.2% of Colombo’s population, 26.6% of Gampaha’s population, 12% of Polonnaruwa’s population and 11.1% of Matale’s population have received the second dose as well.

In total, the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine has been administered to 9,944,683 persons and the second dose to 2,154,206 persons. This includes 330,868 persons vaccinated on Saturday, of which 306,507 persons received the first dose of Sinopharm and 20,100 persons received the second dose of Sinopharm. The first dose of the vaccine has been administered to 7,945,206 persons and the second dose to 1,753,818 persons.

The Epidemiology Unit states that 2,395 persons received the first dose of Pfizer on Saturday and 201,495 persons have received the first dose of the vaccine to date.

The first dose of Moderna was administered to 1,866 persons on Saturday and a total of 713,659 persons have received the first dose of the vaccine.

In addition to this, 159,081 persons have received the first dose of Sputnik V, of which only 14,503 persons have received the second dose as well.

4,500 COVID-19 patients detected over the weekend

67 COVID-19 deaths confirmed