Colombo [Sri Lanka]: Sri Lankan President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, on Thursday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for providing 500,000 COVID-19 vaccines to the island nation.

He also thanked the Indian citizens for the generous attitude shown to the Sri Lankan people in such testing times. "Received 500,000 #COVID-19 vaccines provided by #peopleofindia at #BIA today (28). Thank you! PM Shri @narendramodi & #peopleofindia for the generosity showed towards #PeopleofSriLanka at this time in need," tweeted Rajapaksa.

The consignment of 'Made in India' coronavirus vaccine (Covishield) reached Colombo on Thursday under the Vaccine Maitri initiative.

The delivery of the COVID-19 vaccines to Sri Lanka is a fulfilment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment made to his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa during the virtual bilateral summit held in September 2020 for all possible support to Sri Lanka for minimizing the health and economic impact of the pandemic.

This comes days after Sri Lanka's drugs regulatory body -- National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) --gave a go-ahead to Oxford Astrazeneca's vaccine.

Earlier, India supplied COVID-19 vaccines to neighbouring countries Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh under the Neighbourhood First policy.