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Third dose booster jab: ACCD yet to greenlight Pfizer booster dose

25 Sep 2021

By Aazam Ameen The Health Ministry’s Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases (ACCD) is currently reviewing the feasibility of administering the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine as a third booster dose for persons who were fully inoculated, The Sunday Morning learnt. Speaking to The Sunday Morning, Ministry of Health Communications Director and Deputy Director General of Public Health Services Dr. Hemantha Herath said that a firm decision on the subject was not taken so far. “We are still reviewing the available evidence on whether to go ahead with this or not. No decision has been made,” he clarified. Even though State Pharmaceuticals Corporation (SPC) Chairman Dr. Prasanna Gunasena said last Thursday (23) that the decision on whether to purchase a further 14 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as a booster shot for the population would be taken in the upcoming week, Dr. Herath said that this did not mean they will be used exclusively as a booster dose. “We need more and more vaccines on a daily basis. Therefore, we don’t necessarily have to administer these doses as booster doses. There are millions of youths who have not got vaccinated yet – they are probably waiting for the Pfizer vaccine. New people will also enter the categories of those eligible to get vaccinated. We have to prepare for such realities,” he told The Sunday Morning. When queried as to when the ACCD will give the green light on whether the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may be administered as a booster dose, Dr. Herath was unable to confirm a timeline. Earlier, Co-Cabinet Spokesman and Minister of Plantation Dr. Ramesh Pathirana stated that Sri Lanka planned to obtain a supplementary loan of $ 100 million from the World Bank to support Covid-19 emergency response measures and for the purchase of 14 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Accordingly, a cabinet media release detailed that the World Bank agreed to grant the loan.


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