Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa received 500,000 doses of Covishield vaccine as gift from India, donated by the country under the ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy.
India last week announced that it will send COVID-19 vaccines under grant assistance to Sri Lanka and seven other countries, Bhutan, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Seychelles, Afghanistan and Mauritius.
Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives have already received India’s COVID-19 vaccines under grant assistance and Sri Lanka President Rajapaksa was at the Colombo international airport to receive the consignment of free Indian COVID-19 vaccines today.
“Received 500,000 #COVID?19 vaccines provided by #peopleofindia. Thank you! PM Shri @narendramodi & #peopleofindia for the generosity shown towards #PeopleofSriLanka at this time in need,” Rajapaksa tweeted.
Sri Lanka would be ordering 3 million doses of the Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine from India’s Serum Institute. India is one of the world’s biggest drug-makers and an increasing number of countries have already approached it for procuring the coronavirus vaccines.
