The World Bank has approved $80 million for Sri Lanka to aid its vaccine deployment and distribution, reported Colombopage. This additional finance builds on the $217.56 million Sri Lanka COVID-19 Emergency Response and Pandemic Preparedness Project which was approved in April 2020. 

The new funding will cover around 4 million people, 18 percent of the total population of the government. It will also cover the cost of deploying safe and effective vaccines in the country. Sri Lanka has set the target of vaccinating around 60 percent of its population. 

Faris. H. Hadad-Zervos, World Bank Country Director for Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, hailing the country’s response, said, “Sri Lanka has demonstrated resilience in the implementation of its test, trace and treat pandemic management strategy, which has relied on its well-established public healthcare system.” 

However, he stressed that the island nation, to recover from the pandemic, would need a “sustainable financing mechanism” to strengthen and equip its healthcare system for an improved vaccination program. 

This additional financing will help implement the National Vaccine Deployment Plan of the Ministry of Health (MOH).

The World Bank has been assisting Sri Lanka’s pandemic response by supplying critical personal protective equipment (PPE), medical commodities, and PCR tests, providing temporary cash assistance to vulnerable groups, strengthening isolation and quarantine facilities and laboratory capacity, improving mobility support for the community health officials to improve surveillance and contact tracing measures, risk communication measures and mental health services.