{"id":987522127,"date":"2021-03-19T03:12:27","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T02:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/news\/all-sri-lankans-will-be-vaccinated-free-of-charge-first-batch-should-arrive-within-three-months-chief-epidemiologist\/"},"modified":"2023-03-02T10:35:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T09:35:39","slug":"all-sri-lankans-will-be-vaccinated-free-of-charge-first-batch-should-arrive-within-three-months-chief-epidemiologist","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/news\/all-sri-lankans-will-be-vaccinated-free-of-charge-first-batch-should-arrive-within-three-months-chief-epidemiologist\/","title":{"rendered":"All Sri Lankans will be vaccinated free of charge; first batch should arrive within three months: chief epidemiologist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/sri-lanka-orders-135-million-astrazeneca-doses-likely-to-drop-chinese-covid-19-vaccines\/article33913670.ece\">Sri Lanka<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbctv18.com\/healthcare\/pfizer-biontech-vaccine-shows-high-ability-to-neutralise-new-coronavirus-strains-study-8555801.htm\">Pfizer-BionTech vaccine<\/a> manufactured in the US costs around USD 20 US per dose, while the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/health-55302595\">Oxford-AntraZeneca vaccine<\/a> costs USD 3 per dose. Sri Lanka has yet to decide which vaccine to get, but chief presidential Lalith Weeratunga told a private TV station yesterday that Sri Lanka will most likely opt for the Oxford-AntraZeneca vaccine.<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka joined the (COVAX) facility last year. The country signed part two of the agreement with the WHO last week and is now eligible to receive a limited quantity of the vaccine in the first quarter of 2021.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;frontline workers in health, military and other sectors, people over the age of 60 with non-communicable diseases and select individuals between 50 to 59 years of age that are deemed important to the smooth functioning of the economy will be among 20% of Sri Lankans who will receive a COVID-19 vaccine under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news\/item\/15-02-2021-who-lists-two-additional-covid-19-vaccines-for-emergency-use-and-covax-roll-out\">COVAX<\/a>.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Read the full piece <a href=\"https:\/\/economynext.com\/all-sri-lankans-will-be-vaccinated-free-of-charge-first-batch-should-arrive-within-three-months-chief-epidemiologist-77794\/#\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Image credits: <a href=\"https:\/\/pictures.reuters.com\/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&amp;VF=RTRRTT_1_VForm\">Reuters<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Have anything to say about the financing of COVID 19 vaccines in Sri Lanka? Please tell us in the comments section below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;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 manufactured in the US costs around USD 20 US per dose, while the Oxford-AntraZeneca vaccine costs USD&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":559,"featured_media":987531566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[],"tags":[124],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/987522127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=987522127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/987522127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/987531566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=987522127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=987522127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=987522127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}