Claims that the World Bank stopped supplying free vaccines to Sri Lanka are false: the lender told AFP it does not provide vaccines there. Gavi, an independent alliance, has supported vaccine procurement, and the newspaper behind the claim corrected its report on September 10.
Lankadeepa said naming the World Bank in its September 8 story was an “inadvertent error.” The bank said its income classification of Sri Lanka is a separate statistical exercise and does not determine Gavi’s decisions on vaccine support.
Sri Lanka received Gavi support to procure vaccines from 2002 to 2016, when its per-capita income rose above the alliance’s support threshold. Gavi also donated vaccines from 2023 to 2025 during Sri Lanka’s economic crisis. The country remains eligible for some vaccines, including rotavirus and HPV jabs not in its national immunisation programme. Vaccines are free to people through national programmes, but not free to governments.
