Army inoculate over 180,000 with AstraZeneca 2nd dose within 5 days

More than 180,000 second doses of Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines have been administered by the Sri Lanka Army since August 1 as of Thursday (5).

Health authorities commenced the roll out of the second dose of AstraZeneca vaccines at over 20 inoculation centres in the Western Province on August 1 after Sri Lanka received 728,460 doses of AstraZeneca on July 31 as a donation from the Japanese government.

Accordingly, a total of 447,721 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines were administered to the people as the second dose and out of those, 181,245 vaccines were administered at the vaccination centres manned by the Sri Lanka Army alone.

To expedite the vaccination, the Army also established two 24-hour vaccination centres , in Viharamahadevi Park and Diyatha Uyana where the Army vaccinated around 20,000 per day.

Meanwhile, Army Commander General Shavendra Silva said that even though they had 24 hour open vaccination centres, some of those who had the 1st dose were not interested in getting the second dose.

Meanwhile, Army Commander General Shavendra Silva said that more than one million of Sinopharm vaccines have been kept reserved for the 2nd dose.

He said the Army will launch mobile vaccination centres in Colombo municipality in order to further enhance the numbers of vaccinated people.(Darshana Sanjeewa Balasuriya)