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Colombo, Aug 25 (IANS) Sri Lanka will issue a digital Covid vaccination card to those fully inoculated from mid-September onwards.
Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said that 75 per cent of people over 30 years of age are to be vaccinated by the first week of September and from September 15 onwards, a digital card would be issued to those who have taken both the doses.
Earier this month, Army Commander General Shavendra Silva, who also the heads of the National Operations Centre for the Prevention of Covid-19 Outbreak, had announced that the government is planning to make vaccination certificate mandatory for those visiting public places, using public transport or those crossing provinces.
On Wednesday, the Army Commander said that over 50 per cent of those above 30 years of age have already been vaccinated with two doses, as he urged those above 60 years to get inoculated as early as possible.
Military-controlled vaccination centres are being run around the country while army-run mobile vaccination fleets have also been deployed to administer Covid vaccines to the elderly, sick, handicapped and feeble sections.
On Tuesday, epidemiologists had announced that 91 per cent of those who succumbed to Covid-19 had not been vaccinated while 8 per cent had received only one dose. Around 77 per cent of those died were above 60 years of age.
Amid the fast-spreading transmissible Delta variant, Sri Lanka is planning to vaccinate all above 30 years and children over 12 years of age.
Health authorities had announced that in place of Alpha variant, which was dominant earlier, now the Delta variant has taken over, and 75 per cent of the new cases are found with this variant.
Medical experts have also found four mutations of the Delta variant in Sri Lanka.
Neelika Malavige, the HoD of Immunology and Molecular Sciences at the Sri Jayawardenapura University, stated that further examinations are been carried out together with international laboratories to find out how far these mutations have spread and their transmission rate.
On Wednesday, Sri Lanka reported 4,446 new Codid cases and 190 deaths, taking the island nation's overall Covid death toll to 7,750 so far.
--IANS
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