500,000 doses of AstraZeneca arrives from Japan

KATHMANDU: A total of 559 thousand doses of AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 have arrived from Japan here on Monday.

The vaccines sent by the government of Japan under the COVAX scheme. With this, Nepal has already received 1 million 614 thousand 740 doses of vaccines against the coronavirus infection, according to Spokesperson at the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHA), Dr Krishna Prasad Poudel.

These vaccines will be administered to the senior citizens in Province No 1 and Province No 2, said spokesperson Poudel. The vaccines were flown from Japan after the India-made Covishield were not supplied to Nepal on time, added Poudel.

Similarly, 1.6 million doses of Vero Cell was being brought from China very soon which will be provided to prioritized communities and those below 50 years.

Nepal has already received 10.4 million doses of vaccines against COVID-19. So far, 4 million 942 thousand 250 have already received the first dose of vaccines while the number of fully vaccinated people stands at 3,846,736, according to the MoHA.