Vaccination drive suffers setback due to inclement weather

The vaccination programme has suffered some sort of setback because of the adverse weather conditions prevailing in the country, Deputy Director General of Health Services Dr. Hemantha Herath told the Daily Mirror.

However, he stressed the vaccination roll out in any district was not suspended at present, but added they could not perform their 100% task at the moment.

“The vaccination centres in the Western Province and the Ratnapura District have faced some difficulties due to the bad weather. We also notice that people living in the respective areas were not able to turn up at the centres due to the inundated roads,” Dr. Herath said.

He proceeded to say that the activities in the vaccination centres in the Kurunegala district were also affected, but not to a great extent.

“It is obvious that people have to face these problems during a condition of this nature. At the same time, we can’t put people in trouble by getting them to the centres where rains continue to lash," he underlined.

Hence, Dr Herath said they are hoping that the situation would come to normalcy in another couple of days or so, and that the vaccination drive could be carried ahead smoothly.

The vaccination drive is currently in operation in the Western Province, Jaffna, Matara, Kurunegala, Galle and Ratnapura districts, while vaccination is to begin in 12 more districts from June 8. (Sheain Fernandopulle)