Nepal on Sunday received 1,965,600 doses of Moderna vaccine from the COVAX facility.

It is the third consignment and part of the 3,712,000 doses of Moderna vaccine committed by the facility, the international vaccine sharing scheme backed by the United Nations.

The facility had supplied 188,400 doses of the Moderna vaccine on December 4 and 1,497,600 doses of the vaccine on December 9.

“We received 1,965,600 doses of the Moderna vaccine from the COVAX facility today (Sunday),” Badebabu Thapa, a senior officer at the Logistic Management Section under the Department of Health Services, told the Post.

The Moderna vaccine is the fifth Covid-19 vaccine Nepal is going to use after AstraZeneca, Vero Cell, Janssen and Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines.

The Moderna vaccine needs to be stored in minus 20 degrees Celsius.

As the authorities concerned have already stored the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in minus 70 degrees Celsius, the country will not have any problems storing the Moderna vaccine in minus 20 degrees Celsius, officials said.

The Ministry of Health and Population said that the vaccine will be administered to children between 12 and 17 years in 57 districts from December 20.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, the vaccine will not be administered in 20 districts, where the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine was administered earlier.

“Preparations are underway to roll out the Moderna vaccine from December 20 in 57 districts,” Sagar Dahal, chief of the National Immunisation Programme, told the Post. “Students will be jabbed at their respective schools”

After poor response from the priority groups—immunity compromised people–health authorities had opened the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children between 12 and 17 years on November 22.

Officials said that the local units have already been urged to make a list of children eligible for the jabs.

Dahal said that the estimated population of children between 12 and 17 years is around 3.5 million but the target group for the existing Moderna vaccines is only 1.8 million children.

“We will have sufficient doses for the 1.8 million children,” said Dahal.

The Health Ministry said that the COVAX facility will supply 620,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, which will be administered in districts where the said vaccine has been administered to children between 12 to 17 years of age.

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

Nepal needs to vaccinate around 78 percent of its over 30 million estimated 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.

As of Saturday, 9,241,261 people (30.4 percent of the total population) have been fully immunised.

Nepal so far has received 27,147,440 doses of Covid-19 vaccines—Vero Cell, AstraZeneca, Janssen, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Nepal also purchased 4 million doses of the Moderna vaccine through COVAX’s cost-sharing scheme using the Asian Development Bank’s loan. The doses are expected to be delivered within the first quarter of 2022.

Nepal so far has received 29,113,040 doses of Covid-19 vaccines—Vero Cell, AstraZeneca, Janssen, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.