PMAC side meeting – financing of primary health care in Southeast Asia Region
On 22 January 2024, PMAC side meeting – financing of primary health care in Southeast Asia Region was held in Bangkok, Thailand. This event was co-organized by WHO South-East Asia Region, Chulalongkorn University, and Mahidol University. In this side meeting, P4H...
New document on analysis of out-of-pocket expenditure in rural Sri Lanka is now available
Sri Lanka provides health care service free-of-charge, including maternal health care. This study aimed to examine the magnitude of and factors associated with out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPs) during the first prenatal clinic visit by pregnant women in Anuradhapura...
Compulsory vaccination for all citizens of Sri Lanka next year
Sri Lanka will legislate mandatory COVID vaccination to all citizens from next year. To read more, please click. Source: economynext Picture by Niphon subsri
Sri Lanka plans to vaccinate people age between 20-30-year
Sri Lanka plans to inoculate people aged between 20 and 30 years or 3.5 million people at district level. Eight million doses of vaccine which are expected to arrive in September will be used for the inoculation. Currently, prioritization is given to people in this...
Sri Lanka prioritizes elderly and people with chronic diseases for COVID test and vaccine
Sri Lanka prioritizes people age 60 and over and people with chronic diseases for receiving PCR and Rapid Antigen Tests as well as the vaccination. This is because they have a higher risk of death if they are not vaccinated. Thus, they...
Sri Lanka devises comprehensive mechanism to vaccinate majority of population before September
Sri Lanka plans to vaccinate a majority of the country’s population against the COVID-19 virus before September. The received vaccines in July will be made available to the public. The vaccine priority is given to the districts identified as high risk areas...
Sri Lanka to receive aid from Australia as part of the latter’s new Health Security Initiative
Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Marise Payne, announced that Australia will provide AUD 5.5 million in funding to Sri Lanka as part of a new Health Security initiative to support the Sri Lankan Government’s COVID-19 response. The new initiative will assist...
Government decides to allocate remaining COVID 19 Fund to Vaccination Drive
A decision has been taken to allocate the remaining balance of Rs. 1,360,922,969.24 of the COVID–19 (ITUKAMA) Healthcare and Social Security Fund to the COVID-19 vaccination drive, President’s Media Division said in a statement today. The total amount credited to the...
Sri Lanka’s health financing challenge: Why smarter spending is key
Sri Lanka’s public health spending as a share of GDP, at around 1.5 per cent, is low by international standards. This is compounded by inefficiencies in fund administration and allocation. A related problem is the lack of a proper system to forecast financial...
Sri Lanka launches the COVID–19 Healthcare and Social Security Fund
The Government of Sri Lanka set up ‘COVID-19 Healthcare and Social Security Fund’ on 23rd March 2020, to strengthen the activities aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19 virus in the country and to support the related social welfare programmes in...
Public–private partnerships for universal health coverage? The future of “free health” in Sri Lanka
With less than 5% spending ion health, the Sri Lankan Government runs public hospitals that offer ‘free’ healthcare on a walk-in basis with no extra cost. While this is an achievement of no ordinary means and has impressive geographical reach even though...
Budget 2021: Rs 18Bn to be allocated for Maintaining Health Services
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa announced a boost to the public health sector in light of the extended needs demanded by the COVID-19 Pandemic. He allocated an additional Rs. 18bn for expansion of health facilities to tackle COVID-19 and resultant health...
All Sri Lankans will be vaccinated free of charge; first batch should arrive within three months: chief epidemiologist
'Sri Lanka will likely receive the first batch of a government-approved COVID-19 vaccine within the next three months and plans are underway to vaccinate all citizens free of charge, Chief Epidemiologist Dr Sudath Samaraweera said. The Pfizer-BionTech vaccine...
Sri Lanka receives Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines under COVAX Facility
'Sri Lanka on Sunday received the first batch of 264,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines provided under the World Health Organisation's COVAX facility, an official said. COVAX is the global initiative to ensure rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines...