There are issues that need to be resolved: Dr. Hemantha Herath

There are issues in the vaccination programme and concrete action should be taken to resolve these problems, said the Deputy Director-General (Public Health Services I), Dr. Hemantha Herath, explaining that just before he met the Sunday Times on Thursday too there was a discussion on the matter.

He said that the programme was working smoothly in some areas while in others there seemed to be some confusion and chaos. Sometimes there is a “complication” in Colombo because there are permanent as well as temporary residents in more or less equal numbers.

“If we give the vaccine only to people on the voting list in a specific area like distributing the ballot papers, it would have been easy. But in our strategy we cannot limit the vaccine. Therefore, when we invite people to come for the vaccine, there are unexpectedly large numbers arriving,” said Dr. Herath, adding that sometimes there may also be lack of coordination between ground level officials.

He was happy that compared to other countries, Sri Lanka’s vaccine demand and acceptance rate is relatively high. People also want to get the vaccine as quickly as possible, even though they are asked to await their turn. The root cause of the rush may also be the limited vaccine doses available globally.

“Hypothetically, if we had 5 million vaccine doses by now, we would have activated 2,000 of the 4,000 vaccination centres across the country to give the jab to 1,000 people in two days at each centre and so on. Then two million can be vaccinated within two days. We have the capability to do so, if we have the vaccines,” he said.

Dr. Herath said that though Sri Lanka was expecting more doses from India, the situation might change according to global requests and demand. There might also be an increase in demand in India, thereby giving more priority to their people. In January, there was a fire at the Serum Institute (where the vaccine is being manufactured), so one never knows what will happen.

Why some health staff rejected the vaccine?

When asked why some health staff refused to take the vaccine, he said that there was misinformation circulating at that time about not being able to take alcohol or smoke for a while after the vaccine. While alcohol and smoking are not good for a person’s health, their ill- effects are not linked to the vaccine.

Another fear was infertility or impotence in five years, for which we don’t have evidence to disprove as the vaccine is a new one. Even though no one knows, people have doubts. From a layperson’s perspective, it seems valid, he added.

Numbers

Referring to case numbers, Dr. Herath said that as of March 3, in the 86 treatment centres there were 2,950 patients, both symptomatic and asymptomatic.

Since April 22, last year over 100,000 people have been repatriated, he added.