Colombo, Mar 27 (IANS): Sri Lanka will receive 20,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19 next month, a Minister announced here.

State Minister of Production, Supply, and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals Channa Jayasumana said on Friday that Sri Lanka will receive the first batch most likely before the local Sinhala and Tamil New Year, reports Xinhua news agency.

The cabinet earlier this week granted approval to purchase 7 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccines, the Minister said.

Meanwhile, with India restricting its exports on the AstraZeneca vaccines, an official from Sri Lanka's State Pharmaceutical Corporation (SPC) told Xinhua that the SPC had begun discussions with AstraZeneca in the UK to purchase at least 8.5 million doses once it received local approval from the National Medicines Regulatory Authority.

The official said discussions were also ongoing with Johnson and Johnson to purchase its vaccines and order would be placed once local approval is granted.

Sri Lanka is presently in the midst of a mass scale vaccination program as it began inoculating all those above 30 in the urban Western Province from mid-February, after frontline and health workers were administered the AstraZeneca jabs.