The Government is confident that the country will be able to meet the ambitious target of administering two doses of COVID-19 vaccine to 13.5 million citizens above 30 years by September or October this year, Co-Cabinet Spokesman Mass Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said.

He was addressing a media conference held yesterday at the Government Information Department to inform the decisions taken at this week’s meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers.

The Minister said that the Government has given priority to implement all anti-pandemic measures and at the same time, the Government has to mitigate the economic and social fallout of the pandemic.

“Vaccination has been identified as the best way to control the pandemic and we are doing it in quite an effective and efficient manner. One of the most efficient vaccination drives in the world is taking place in Sri Lanka,” said the Minister.

As per the statistics of the Health Ministry around 89.66 per cent of the target population has been given at least one dose of the vaccine and around 21.31 per cent of the target population has received the second dose of vaccine. Accordingly, a total number of 12,758,216 doses have already been administered in Sri Lanka. A total of 244,251-second doses of AstraZeneca vaccines have been administered since Monday (1). The first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine was administered to 22,981 individuals on Monday.

Also, 203,515 doses of Sinopharm vaccines had been administered as the first dose while a total of 18,483-second doses of Sinopharm vaccines were given on Monday.

Around 2,490 doses of the Moderna vaccine had been administered as the first dose on the same day.