Nepal on Monday received 862,080 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from the COVAX facility.
The doses are part of the 2,174160 doses offered by the facility, the United Nation backed international vaccine sharing scheme.
“The doses are supplied by the United Kingdom through the COVAX facility,” said Dr Surendra Chaurasia, chief of the Logistic Management Section Under the Department of Health Services. “We are informed that the remaining 1,312,080 doses will be supplied on February 14.”
Nepal so far has received 46,599920 doses of vaccines, including AstraZeneca, Vero Cell, Moderna, Janssen and Pfizer-BioNTech.
Nepal needs to vaccinate around 26 million of the 29.1 million population, as around three million are children under five years of age. Authorities had decided to inoculate children between five and 11 years but no deal has been reached so far to purchase vaccines for them.
So far, 15,628,533 people, or 53.3 percent of the total population have been fully immunised.
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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