With health staff increasingly contracting COVID-19, GMOA urges fast tracking of vaccine import

By Rathindra Kuruwita

Given that a large number of hospital workers had contracted COVID-19, the government was taking steps to fast track the import of a COVID-19 vaccine, the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) said yesterday.

It said the government should ensure that the vaccine was approved by the WHO, had a high rate of efficiency, least cases of side effects, suitable for the environment prevalent in the country and be affordable.

Dr. Senel Fernando, Secretary of the GMOA, said that the independent committees should be appointed and they should decide what vaccine should be imported and the reasons for their decision.

“The vaccine must also be registered with the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) and this should be expedited. A number of healthcare professionals are falling victim to COVID-19 and a number of others are in isolation as they are first contacts. Given this situation, human resources will be a limiting factor in the health sector soon. We need to take care of the frontline staff.”

Dr. Fernando noted that there was confusion about the import of vaccines with officials offering various opinions. People were told that several countries had offered help, but nothing concrete had come out as yet.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a letter to the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping has sought access to Chinese vaccine against COVID-19, the Foreign Ministry said last week. Ambassador of Sri Lanka to the People’s Republic of China Dr. Palitha Kohona has made this statement when he presented a copy of the credentials to Director General of the Department of Protocol Hong Lei at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China earlier this week.

Media has also reported that India has agreed to donate its locally manufactured vaccines against the COVID-19 for Sri Lanka’s frontline workers.