COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's Health Ministry on Sunday received a new batch of Sinopharm vaccine from China as a mass scale vaccination program against the COVID-19 is underway in the country.

The vaccines arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport, onboard two Sri Lankan Airlines flights that flew in from Beijing.

Sri Lanka is presently in the midst of a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with over 500 deaths reported during the past 10 days alone.

The total COVID-19 active patient count has reached 28,664 while the total death toll has reached 5,017.

According to the Health Ministry, Sri Lanka has administered over 10 million vaccines to date with over 8.7 million Sinopharm doses administered as the first jabs. Out of this, over 1.9 million had been administered with their second jabs as well.

The other vaccines being administered countrywide are Sputnik V, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and the Moderna vaccines.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said recently that the government aims to inoculate all citizens above the age of 30 with the first doses by September.