Health authorities have decided to administer the Covid-19 vaccine from major hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley on a regular basis from next week.

“Both Vero Cell and AstraZeneca vaccines will be available in the major hospitals of Kathmandu Valley from next week,” Sagar Dahal, chief of the National Immunisation Programme, told the Post. “People who have not been vaccinated can receive the jabs at their convenient time now.”

The vaccine will be provided from Bir Hospital, Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, Army Hospital, Nepal Police Hospital, and Civil Hospital in Kathmandu. Likewise two hospitals in Lalitpur, including Patan hospital, will provide the Covid-19 vaccine regularly.

The Health Ministry plans to hand over the rights to administer Covid-19 vaccines to the provincial government agencies.

“We will supply vaccines to the provincial government agencies and they will decide the hospitals from where the jabs will be administered,” Dahal said.

As of now, health authorities in the districts have been publishing the vaccination schedule as per the availability of doses.

It is estimated that thousands of people from the eligible age groups have not received the Covid-19 vaccine due to various reasons, including long queues in vaccination centres.

“The decision to regularly administer the Covid-19 vaccine from major hospitals in Kathmandu is a positive step,” Dr Baburam Marasini, former director at the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, told the Post. “Authorities concerned should also try to provide the jabs from health posts to increase the vaccine coverage rate.”

Meanwhile, Nepal received 1,550,000 doses of the Vero Cell and AstraZeneca vaccines in the last two days. Of the 1,550,000 doses, 492,000 were AstraZeneca type vaccines that arrived on Wednesday evening. The doses were provided by the Swiss government under grant assistance and through the COVAX facility, an international vaccine-sharing scheme backed by the United Nations.

Likewise, the country received 1,058,000 doses of Vero Cell vaccine on Thursday, which it purchased through the cost-sharing mechanism of the COVAX facility.

It is the second consignment delivered by the COVAX.

The government has purchased over 5.9 million doses of the vaccine through COVAX’s cost-sharing mechanism. The COVAX supplied 1.02 million doses of Vero Cell vaccine on October 27.

The vaccine was purchased with a loan from the Asian Development Bank.

Nepal so far has used AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in India, Japan and Europe; Vero Cell developed by Sinopharm of China; and the single-shot Janssen made by Johnson & Johnson in the United States.

Earlier on Monday, the People’s Liberation Army of China had provided 300,000 doses of Vero Cell vaccine to the Nepal Army.

The Chinese government has so far provided 3.8 million Vero Cell doses, including those provided by Chinese Army to Nepali Army and Chinese Red Cross to Nepal Red Cross Society.

The Chinese government has also pledged to provide 2 million doses [vaccine brand unspecified] and 1 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine to Nepal.

Nepal has purchased 10 million doses of Vero Cell vaccine through a non-disclosure agreement from China.

From India, the government has purchased 2 million doses of Covishield, the AstraZeneca type vaccine while the Indian government has donated 1.1 million doses of Covishield vaccine to Nepal.

Besides China and India, Bhutan and Maldives have also provided 230,000 and 201,600 doses of surplus AstraZeneca type vaccines to Nepal respectively. Japan provided 16,14740 doses through the COVAX facility while the United Kingdom provided 130,000 doses of AstraZeneca type vaccine.

The United States of America provided 1,534,850 doses of Janssen vaccine and 100,620 doses of PfiZer-BioNTech vaccine to Nepal.

The government has also decided to purchase 10 million doses of vaccine (4 million doses of Moderna vaccine and 6 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine) from US firms.

Nepal launched its Covid-19 vaccination campaign on January 27 with 1 million doses of Covishield gifted by India.

Nepal needs to vaccinate around 78 percent of its 30 million population—or around 25 million people, as per the government’s new plan that includes those aged between 12 and 18 years. Earlier, the government had planned to vaccinate only those aged 15 years and above.

Since around 4-5 million people are said to be living abroad, the government needs to vaccinate around 19-20 million people. For this, the country needs a little over 40 million doses of double-shot vaccines.

As of Thursday, 7,485,110 people (24.6percent of the total population) have been fully vaccinated.

Nepal has so far received 23,629,810 doses of Covid-19 vaccines–Vero Cell, AstraZeneca, Janssen and Pfizer-BioNTech.