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Pfizer vaccine: Millions of doses may be disposed of in Nov.

09 Oct 2022

  • Public urged to get booster doses this month 
By Maneesha Dullewe The Ministry of Health will continue its efforts to get more people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as the 31 October expiration date on the stock of Pfizer vaccines draws closer, it is learned. According to the Ministry of Health, nearly seven million Pfizer vaccine doses remained to be used and it is urging the public to get their respective first or second booster doses before the vaccines expire. Sri Lanka purchased 18,000,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine by January 2022. In July, the Health Ministry extended the expiry date of the already-imported Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines by three months until 31 October, from the initial date of expiry of 31 July, on the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO). Speaking to The Sunday Morning, Deputy Director General of Public Health Services Dr. Hemantha Herath said that if the stock remained unused, it would be disposed of using the appropriate methods. “There are specific methods to dispose of various medicines and vaccines in environmentally-friendly ways, so if this stock is not consumed, we will have to dispose of it in line with these practices.”    Dr. Herath also noted that the shelf life of the vaccines could only be extended by the manufacturer and upon agreement of the WHO, which would need to be followed by a recommendation to that effect from an expert committee to the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) and the NMRA’s subsequent agreement. Only then will the Director General of Health Services be able to extend the shelf life of the vaccines until the recommended time period. The data available at the Epidemiology Unit as of Friday (7) revealed that a total of 12,116,071 doses of the Pfizer vaccine had been administered in Sri Lanka.  Chief Epidemiologist Dr. Samitha Ginige noted that public interest in getting the booster jabs was lukewarm, since the number of Covid patients and deaths in the country had dropped. However, Sri Lanka was still in danger of being exposed to new variants at any given time, he said. He therefore urged the public to take the vaccine as soon as possible, noting that the campaign to promote vaccination had been ongoing for the past month as well, with vaccinations available on Saturdays at all Medical Officer of Health vaccination centres and hospitals. Meanwhile, Health Ministry Secretary Janaka Sri Chandraguptha said that the Government was making every effort to ensure that everyone eligible was vaccinated.  


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