Nepal on Wednesday received 1.6 million doses of Vero Cell vaccine from China. The vaccine is part of the grant assistance pledged by the northern neighbour.
“The People’s Republic of China has provided 1.6 million doses of Vero Cell vaccine to the Nepal government,” reads a press statement issued by the Health Ministry.
Earlier, the Chinese government had provided 1.8 million Vero Cell doses, which were delivered in March and June. The Chinese government has also pledged to provide 2 million doses [vaccine brand unspecified] and 1 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine to Nepal.
Separately, China has pledged to provide 300,000 doses to the Nepal Army.
Also, the Chinese Red Cross provided 100,000 Vero Cell doses to the Nepal Red Cross Society and the doses were handed over to the Health Ministry.
Nepal had purchased 10 million doses of Vero cell vaccine through a non-disclosure agreement.
Separately, the government has purchased over 5.9 million doses of the vaccine through COVAX’s cost-sharing mechanism. Of this, COVAX last week supplied 1.02 million doses of Vero Cell vaccine. The vaccine was purchased using a loan from the Asian Development Bank.
Nepal so far has used AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in India, Japan and Europe; Vero Cell vaccine developed by Sinopharm of China; and the single-shot Janssen made by Johnson & Johnson in the United States.
Nepal had launched its Covid-19 vaccination campaign on January 27 with the 1 million doses of Covishield, the AstraZeneca type vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.
Altogether, the country has received 21,779,810 doses of Covid-19 vaccines—Vero Cell, AstraZeneca, Janssen and Pfizer-BioNTech.
As of Wednesday, 7,381,202 people (24.3percent of the total population) have been fully vaccinated, according to the Health Ministry.
Arjun Poudel is a health reporter for The Kathmandu Post. Before joining the Post, he worked for Sagarmatha Television, Naya Patrika, Republica and The Himalayan Times.
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