Sri Lanka prefers Indian and Russian vaccines over Chinese vaccine gift

Sri Lanka has for all practical purposes closed the door for the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine despite Beijing’s claim of making a bigger donation of doses compared to India.

The Lankan cabinet announced on Tuesday that the government decided to buy an additional six million doses of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine on top of 13.5 million doses of the Indian-made AstraZeneca vaccines already on order, according to a report in Economynext, a Lankan media platform.

Last month, an order was placed for seven million doses of the Sputnik vaccine at a cost of $69.65 million, according to the report titled Sri Lanka shuts out Sinopharm despite Chinese gift.


The Indian and the Russian vaccines alone will cover 65 percent of Sri Lanka’s 21 million population.

Cabinet spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told reporters in Colombo on Tuesday that with the order for Sputnik V, the government had reached the required number of doses to inoculate the targeted population to contain the spread of Covid-19 in the island.

He said other orders would be considered if there were any supply shortfalls.

India had donated 500,000 doses in January and China topped it by 100,000 with a gift of 600,000 doses of Sinopharm on March 31.

However, unlike the Indian-made vaccine, Sri Lanka is yet to approve the use of Sinopharm vaccine and it was allowed into the country on the basis that it will be used only to inoculate Chinese nationals in Sri Lanka, according to the report.