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Covid-19 vaccination programme | Fresh guidelines cause chaos

07 Mar 2021

  • First COVAX consignment arrives today 
  • Electoral registry to be used 
  • GN, Police, and MOH to co-ordinate 
By Sarah Hannan  The walk-in vaccine drive that the Ministry of Health had previously planned out, turned chaotic last week, with the age category being shifted from 60 years and above to 30 years and above, as the designated vaccine centres saw an influx of people that they were not prepared to handle.  With the Ministry of Health due to receive the first consignment of 240,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccines through the COVAX Facility today (7), Sri Lanka gets ready to face another week of vaccination drives in the Western Province.  Navigating the hiccups that the health sector had to face last week, the Ministry of Health, through the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) as well as the State Ministry of Primary Healthcare, Epidemics, and Covid Disease Control, have now reached out to the grama niladhari (GN) officers and the Police to co-ordinate administering vaccinations for the public. State Minister of Primary Healthcare, Epidemics, and Covid Disease Control Dr. Sudharshini Fernandopulle, speaking to The Sunday Morning, said: “Fresh guidelines have been issued by the DGHS to the Officer in Charge of the area Police and relevant GN division officials to co-ordinate the vaccination drive with the Medical Officer of Health (MOH) office in their respective areas using the voter registration, so that the vaccination programme could be conducted in an orderly manner.”  According to Dr. Fernandopulle, Phase I of the vaccination programme will now focus on inoculating communities above the age of 30 years that are residing in areas recognised as high risk for Covid-19. 

Eleventh-hour decisions 

While the Ministry of Health and the State Ministry of Primary Healthcare, Epidemics, and Covid Disease Control earlier communicated that a priority list was being drafted by the Technical Committee that was appointed to decide on the demographics of inoculation priority, when the vaccine programme rolled out for the general public almost three weeks ahead of the scheduled timeline of 15 March, chaos seemed to have ensued due to the priority list possibly being tampered with and the age groups that were to be vaccinated changing at the eleventh hour.  As the majority of Covid-19 patients were reported from the Colombo and Gampaha Districts, it was decided to start vaccinating the general public from those districts.  According to the Epidemiology Unit, only 10% of deaths occur in people over 60 years of age. But the death toll between the ages of 30-60 is much higher. Therefore, it was announced that from 16 February, the vaccination was to be given to people in that age group.  Accordingly, the decision taken to give the vaccine to 2.8 million people over the age of 60 before it was given to the general public was overturned.  "The vaccination plan changed and even the decisions of the Technical Committee and the Presidential Task Force kept changing overnight. All that work which went into drafting a strategic plan to vaccinate the groups according to the priority was disregarded at the last minute, causing much confusion,” Dr. Fernandopulle exclaimed. She expressed her disappointment over the sudden change of plans and for not adhering to the international guidelines that were issued to formulate the priority lists when the vaccination programme rolled out.  “As a community physician that has been working in the field of medicine, I am ashamed of the administration's indecisiveness and lack of discipline to follow simple guidelines. That caused distress not only to the general public, but also to the staff that were assigned to carry out the duties at the vaccination centres. Finally, the stakeholders have now come to an agreement to vaccinate everyone over the age of 30, although that decision too was not cascaded to the rest of the healthcare institutions accordingly,” Dr. Fernadopulle elaborated. 

MOHs under pressure

The Sunday Morning observed the vaccination roll out that ensued following the decision announced by the DGHS to vaccinate all above 30 years with priority given to high-risk zones.   However, due to miscommunication, the public that eagerly flocked at the designated vaccination centres and hospitals that had issued communiqués of the vaccination rollout had to readjust their schedules.  One such incident was observed at the MOH office in Battaramulla, where the designated MOH Dr. Jayampathy Amarasekara had initially drawn up a schedule to vaccinate all those above 60 years in his MOH area at the Thalangama Hospital between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. from 1-6 March – that was broken into GN divisions.  However, just as he received the news about the change in age category, he had made it a point to share a status update on his personal social media profile as well as the social media page that is created for the MOH office for Battaramulla.  “The stocks that we had allocated for Phase I (to vaccinate persons above 60 years for the whole MOH area) were insufficient to entertain all these people. Therefore, we took a decision to only vaccinate permanent and temporary residents living in the Kalapaluwawa and Kotuwegoda areas above the age of 30 at the Thalangama Hospital,” Dr. Amarasekara explained.  The situation had gotten out of hand, as certain individuals had shared the mobile numbers of the staff as well as Dr. Amarasekara without their knowledge to make inquiries. “We were okay with calls coming in to our general line, but when the mobile phones started to ring, it was quite stressful. Therefore, we took a decision to allocate two days to inoculate persons from the Kalapaluwawa and Kotuwegoda areas last week as instructed by the DGHS,” Dr. Amarasekara noted.  With the vaccine doses now running out of stock at the MOH office in Battaramulla, Dr. Amarasekara had also issued a statement to say that he has instructed the GN officers that are under the Battaramulla MOH to convey the message to their GN divisions, as to when they can ask the people to come to the hospital to get the vaccines. 


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