Nepal on Friday received 1.5 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s bivalent Covid vaccine from the COVAX facility.

Issuing a press release on Friday, the European Union stated that the vaccines were donated by the Governments of Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Greece and Italy through the COVAX facility.

Nona Deprez, ambassador and head of the delegation of European Union to Nepal, presented the vaccines to the Secretary of the Health and Population Ministry Dr Roshan Pokharel, in the presence of representatives of the donor countries.

UNICEF Representative to Nepal Usha Mishra and WHO’s Public Health Administrator for Nepal Dr Md Khurshid Alam Hyder were also present.

“The present donation of vaccines to Nepal under COVAX has come at an appropriate time when the number of daily infections seem to be rising steadily,” a press release issued by the EU quoted Deprez as saying.

She hoped the donation will help safeguard the people of Nepal against Covid, the risks of which are not completely over.

Secretary Pokharel stated the government’s commitment to continuing Covid-19 vaccination drives, in order to contain the virus. He also acknowledged that the continuous support from the EU member states was vital in the nation’s vaccination campaign.

“The timely and generous support from the EU member states is critical in strengthening our vaccination campaign,” Pokharel said.

French Ambassador Gilles Bourbao stressed on the need and the efficiency of multilateral solutions in order to combat global problems.

Of the 1.5 million doses, 400,320 were donated by Austria, 362,880 by the Czech Republic, 195,840 by France, 348,480 by Greece and 195,840 doses by Italy.

Wednesday’s slot has taken the total number of Covid-19 vaccines donated to Nepal by EU member states to over 8.4 million.

France and Italy have previously donated 685,400 and 663,600 doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Nepal respectively.

Nepal, on Wednesday, reported its second Covid-19 death in over three months, only a day after the 94-day streak was broken on Tuesday.

So far, 12,022 Covid-related deaths have been reported in Nepal, according to the official count. The health ministry said that 83.1 percent of the total population have been fully vaccinated.

As of March 28, at least 9,418,479 people have received booster shots.