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Covid-19 vaccination: National plan this week 

09 Jan 2021

By Sarah Hannan The national plan on rolling out the Covid-19 vaccine programme is to be finalised by Tuesday (12), with the Covid-19 Vaccine Committee looking to publish its details within the course of the week, The Sunday Morning learnt.  Speaking to The Sunday Morning on Friday (8), Covid-19 Vaccine Committee Chairman and Senior Advisor to the President Lalith Weeratunga said: “We are finalising the necessary paperwork to bring down the vaccine. However, we still have not made a call on which vaccine we would be bringing in. The committee will meet on 11 January for deliberations, and by 12 January, we will brief President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Minister of Health Pavithra Wanniarachchi, and State Minister of Primary Health Care, Epidemics, and Covid-19 Disease Control Dr. Sudharshini Fernandopulle.”  Weeratunga said the national plan will be published after the authorities decide on which vaccines would be ordered and the dates on which the vaccination programme would be implemented.  The Ministry of Health and the State Ministry of Primary Healthcare, Epidemics, and Covid-19 Disease Control affirmed that the vaccination programme is scheduled to be rolled out mid-February, and that if there are any delays, the vaccinations would be made available earliest by the first week of March.  With the national plan billed to be drafted this week, it will take into consideration the priority list of the 20% that will be inoculated in the initial stage, the availability of logistics to transport and store the vaccine, the regulations that need to be in place, the recommended dosage pertaining to the course of vaccinations, and the vaccination aftercare preparedness required in order to respond to those who develop side effects.  Sri Lanka submitted the first part of the application to be listed under the COVAX facility on 13 August 2020, containing information regarding the target group, the storage capacity, and technical information. Last week, the second part of the application to obtain a limited quantity of the Covid-19 vaccine in the coming months was submitted to COVAX.  Last September, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that 64 higher income economies had joined the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC), which is a global initiative that brings together governments and manufacturers to ensure that the Covid-19 vaccines reach those with the greatest need.  Sri Lanka was listed as a lower-middle-income country that is eligible to participate in the COVAX facility supported by the COVAX AMC. The 64 members of the facility will be joined by 92 low and middle-income economies eligible for support for the procurement of vaccines through the COVAX AMC of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance – a financing instrument aimed at supporting the procurement of vaccines for these countries.  COVAX's initial aim is to have two billion doses available by the end of 2021, which they believe would be sufficient to protect high-risk groups and vulnerable people, as well as frontline healthcare workers.  In terms of low-income nations that are funded, who would otherwise be unable to afford these vaccines, as well as a number of high-income self-financing countries that have no bilateral deals with the manufacturers of vaccines, COVAX will be a lifeline and the only viable way in which their citizens will get access to Covid-19 vaccines.  COVAX is part of the three pillars of the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator that was launched in April 2020, by the WHO, the European Commission, and France in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.   

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