12 February 2021 12:00 am
By Kelum Bandara
The Chinese side is already with 300,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines to be donated to Sri Lanka despite the huge worldwide demand, but the consignment cannot be dispatched because the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) has not given regulatory clearance yet, a spokesman said yesterday.
Asserting that the NMRA is working on it, a Chinese embassy spokesman said the Chinese New Year holiday will not hamper the delivery of consignments of Covid-19 vaccines.
He said the Chinese New Year holiday will last for one week starting from yesterday and the work will not stop even for one hour. Some consignments including donations to African countries had been arranged during the holidays.
He also said China had administered 40.52 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines on key groups of people by February 9. “ More and more countries started the vaccination with Chinese vaccines. Peru President Francisco Sagasti on Tuesday received the first shot of Sinopharm vaccine, officially launching its national vaccination campaign against COVID-19,” he said.