Nepal on Tuesday received 368,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from Canada.

The jans are provided through COVAX, an international vaccine sharing scheme backed by the United Nations.

“We received 368,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine on Tuesday supplied by the government of Canada,” Upendra Dhungana, chief at the Logistic Management Section under the Department of Health Services, told the Post. “The doses have to be used within two and a half months.

The Canadian government shipped the vaccine to Nepal after having surplus doses

Bhutan and the Maldives also had provided 230,000 doses and 201600 doses of surplus AstraZeneca type vaccines, respectively.

The doses supplied by Bhutan had around a week before expiry when they were delivered to Nepal. Doses supplied by the Maldives had a one-month expiry period on October 31.

Nepal so far has received 23,163,930 doses of Covid-19 vaccines–Vero Cell, AstraZeneca, Janssen and Pfizer-BioNTech.

Of them, the COVAX facility has supplied 4,806,210 doses.

As of Wednesday, 7,624,038 people (25.1 percent of the total population) have been fully vaccinated, according to the Health Ministry.

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 vaccinating all those aged between 12 and 18 years. Earlier the government had planned to vaccinate only those aged 15 years and above.

Since around 4 to 5 million people are estimated 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.

Officials at the Ministry of Health and Population said that over 34 million doses of different types of vaccines will arrive in the country within two months.

As of Wednesday, 7,624,038 people (25.1 percent of the total population) have been fully vaccinated, according to the Health Ministry.