CMLS alleges someone probably got very rich by importing excessive amount of Pfizer vaccine

By Rathindra Kuruwita

Sri Lanka has wasted millions of dollars by importing excess amounts of Pfizer vaccines and those in charge of medical supplies are responsible for the colossal loss, President of the College of Medical Laboratory Science (CMLS) Ravi Kumudesh told The Island yesterday.Kumudesh said that the Ministry of Health claimed that it imported Pfizer to give as a booster shot and that vaccine hesitancy was the reason that millions of doses were unused.

“However, when they brought Pfizer jabs in, they were not thinking of boosters. They claimed that they had brought it for some other categories. By the time millions of Pfizer vaccines arrived, we had vaccinated a lot of people with Sinopharm. The Ministry didn’t estimate how much more vaccines were needed. It imported over 10 million doses, and someone probably got very rich,” he said.

Kumudesh said that when Sri Lanka ordered Pfizer, there wasn’t a shortage of vaccines in the world market and those in charge of procurement could have bought it in batches.

“The Health Ministry knows how many people needed to be vaccinated. This was not taken into account and when they brought in Pfizer, most people had been double-jabbed by that time,” he said.

The health ministry also did not make a serious effort to persuade the public to receive booster doses. “As for vaccine hesitance, let’s assume that 10 percent of the eligible people did not take the vaccine, but that doesn’t account to almost 12 million doses of unused vaccines,” he said.