Minister for Health and Population Birodh Khatiwada has stated that the government aims to provide full vaccination against Covid-19 to all the target population by mid-April 2022.

On Friday, Minister Khatiwada made public a progress report of his 100 days in office, but it should be noted that many of the decisions regarding Covid vaccination were taken by the previous government.

Nepal has so far received 46,570,720 million doses of various Covid vaccines and 3,497,0866 million doses have been administered.

Until Friday, 16,159,578 people or 55.4 percent of the total population have been vaccinated fully. The number of people above 18 years old who have been fully vaccinated is 14,774,924, which is 74.2 percent.

According to Khatiwada, Covid vaccination has been his main focus since becoming health minister.

He said that under his leadership, about 3.4 million children of the 12-17 years age group have been vaccinated.

Minister Khatiwada said that booster and second doses of Covid-19 vaccine will be administered to everyone above the age of 18 from February 13.

He also shared that the government plans to give Covid jabs to all pregnant women who have completed their first trimester.

Khatiwada through the progress report also shared that the government has approved a multi-sectoral action plan to prevent and control non-communicable diseases.

Similarly, Khatiwada’s report also mentions that the government has drafted several guidelines including on providing medical treatment expenses to the patients of kidney transplant, cancer, and spinal paralysis; national health finance strategy; national eye health strategy; geriatric health services strategy; Nepal health institutions survey; telemedicine services operations; National Health Finance Strategy; and national eye health plan among others.

On Friday, 1,128 people tested positive for Covid-19—666 in 17,447 polymerase chain reaction tests and 462 in 3,542 antigen tests.

In the last 24 hours 14 people died of Covid-19 infection.

Active cases stand at 27,441 throughout the country.

Since its start in 2020, the Covid pandemic has killed 11,878 people in Nepal.