The Government will shortly begin a house-to-house survey to identify unvaccinated adults in the Western Province to find reasons for the recent spike in Covid-19 fatalities and positive cases in the region.
Deaths due to Covid-19 rose from 40 to 60 after June 26 with the Western Province accounting for the highest number of fatalities and new cases. On July 27, the Health Ministry recorded 63 deaths and 1,688 confirmed cases, on July 28 another 66 deaths and 1,919 cases were reported while there were 56 deaths and 2,329 positive cases on July 29. On July 30 there were 2,455 positive cases.
"This is a worrying trend compared to 48 deaths on July 26," State Minister for Primary Health Services, Pandemics and Covid Prevention, Dr. Sudarshani Fernandopulle said. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa instructed the health officials last week to conduct an islandwide survey on unvaccinated people to encourage them to get the free vaccine and to ensure the State inoculation drive is a success. Dr. Fernandopulle said Sri Lanka had been lucky to get an uninterrupted supply of Covid-19 vaccines, while some countries were still struggling to get vaccines, but some people guided by misinformation had not taken advantage of the opportunity.
Sri Lanka is using only the vaccines approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the State inoculation drive against Covid-19.
The country was expected to receive nearly 730,000 doses of Astrazeneca vaccines from Japan under the WHO’s Covax facility yesterday. This will be allocated as the second dose for nearly 500,000 people in the Western Province and the remaining will be despatched to the Kegalle district.
Another stock of over 700,000 doses of Astrazeneca will be received from Japan on August 7. By mid last week Sri Lanka had either bought or received as donation 10.7 million doses of Sinopharm, 1.26 million doses of Covishield, 1.5 million doses of Moderna, 202,000 doses of Pfizer and 180,000 doses of Sputnik V. The President’s Media Centre stated that 72 percent of those above 30 have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine so far. “The Government hopes to complete the vaccination of those over 30 years by the end of September and the vaccination of people between 18-29 will be planned thereafter,” State Minister Dr. Fernandopulle said. Sri Lanka had recorded 4,380 deaths and over 307,000 Covid-19 positive cases by Friday.