WHO Representative in Sri Lanka, Dr. Alaka Singh praised Sri Lanka’s vaccination drive, saying that Sri Lanka’s achievement is “remarkable” when considering only the eligible population, as Sri Lanka has vaccinated over 85 percent administering over 14 million doses.
“The vaccination drive spearheaded the country’s Covid -19 response,” she said, adding “It was successful in terms of coverage and preventing severe disease and hospitalisation.”
Dr. Singh said Sri Lanka has achieved 58 percent coverage of the whole population, more than the WHO’s call for 40 percent.
“This was made possible by the sound primary healthcare foundation in Sri Lanka with its strong routine immunisation program. This formed the basis of the vaccine drive, facilitated by a whole of Government and whole of society approach,” she said.
The WHO also made recommendations on the additional third dose of the vaccine.
“Moderately and severely immunocompromised people should be offered an additional dose of all WHO EUL (Emergency Use Listing) Covid-19 vaccines as part of an extended primary series. This is advised because these people are less likely to respond adequately to vaccination following a standard primary vaccine series of two doses as administered in Sri Lanka and are at higher risk of severe Covid-19 disease,” Dr. Singh said. She added that a third additional dose as a part of the primary series is different to booster doses.