China will donate 500,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine to Sri Lanka, the Chinese Embassy in Colombo announced. This is in addition to earlier 600000 vaccines that it had donated to the island nation.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed about the decision to Sri Lankan ambassador to Beijing Palitha Kohona, reported Daily Mirror. The latter expressed his appreciation for China for this timely assistance at this critical juncture with the number of Covid - 19 cases spiking alarmingly.

The Sri Lanka Embassy in Beijing will coordinate the air freighting of these 500,000 doses of vaccine to Sri Lanka as soon as they are received.

Earlier, Sri Lanka has signed an agreement to procure 14 million doses of Sinopharm vaccines from China. The first batch of the order is expected to arrive soon at a time when the supplies are extremely tight due to high demand across the world

Colomba’s move to procure vaccines from China came after the Serum Institute of India, which is manufacturing the Astra-Zeneca vaccine under the Covishield brand name, failed to deliver the vaccine on time. Earlier, India had donated one million of Covishield to Colombo.

(SAM)