The first consignment of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine offered by the COVAX facility, the United Nations-backed international vaccine sharing scheme, will arrive in Nepal on March 25.

Officials at the Ministry of Health and Population informed that the facility will deliver 1.5 million doses of the said vaccine in the first consignment.

“We have been informed that the first consignment of the Pfizer vaccine of 1.5 million doses will be delivered on March 25,” Dr Surendra Chaurasia, chief of the Logistic Management Section under the Department of Health Services, said.

The consignment is part of 9.2 million doses offered by the facility. According to officials, the facility will supply 1.5 million doses every month until August.

Nepal has already used the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on people above 12 years old.

Earlier in January, the facility had offered to supply 6.2 million doses of the vaccine, and the Health Ministry had accepted the offer.

The facility had supplied 100,620 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in October and 664,560 doses in December last year.

The vaccine needs to be stored in around minus 80 degrees Celsius for longer-term storage. It can, however, be stored at normal temperature (2 to 8 degrees Celsius) for up to 31 days.

Officials at the Logistic Management Section said that the government has the capacity to store up to 1 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine and with UNICEF set to provide additional five ultra-cold freezers, the storage capacity will be doubled.

Additionally, preparations are underway to send a plane to China to bring 4 million doses of the Sinovac-CoronaVac Covid-19 vaccine offered by China under grant assistance, say officials at the Health Ministry.

“The exact date of dispatching a plane to bring the vaccines has not been fixed yet but it will be done within March,”' said Chaurasia at the Logistic Management Section.

The Health Ministry officials said that both vaccines—Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac-CoronaVac—will be used as the first dose for the unvaccinated, and as the second and booster doses on those who may have received other vaccines as the first dose, as the National Immunisation Advisory Committee has given permission for vaccine mix and match.

Nepal so far has received 47,882,800 doses of Covid-19 vaccines, according to the Health Ministry. Of them, 37,986, 668 doses have been used.

As of Monday, 18,021, 508 people or 61.7 percent of the total population have been fully immunised. In the last 24 hours, one died of Covid-19 infection. The Health Ministry said 88 people tested positive for Covid-19 infection on Monday.

Active cases stand at 6,150 throughout the country.