A high-ranking health official in Sri Lanka on Monday said that the country’s vaccination drive is being affected by influential people making favor requests, Daily Mirror reported. He even termed the problem the biggest hurdle in the drive. 

Dr. Hemantha Hearth, the Sri Lankan deputy director-general of health services, also asked people not to come up with such requests for bypassing established procedures and mechanisms. It was causing inconvenience to the country’s health officials. 

“There were also several incidents where some parties demanding health officials to show influence in obtaining the vaccines. This has driven the health officials unable to perform their duties as per the priority list,” he was quoted as saying by Daily Mirror. 

“It is in fact pretty unfair to make such unnecessary requests and throwing their weight behind the health officials to obtain the vaccines,” he added. 

Health officials have prepared a vaccination plan which is based on priority groups, he said. Officials can’t act outside the established framework, he added.