KATHMANDU: Three lakh doses of AstraZeneca vaccine donated by South Asian Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan have arrived in Kathmandu on Friday morning.

The cargo plane of Druk Air, which flew from Paro Airport in Thimphu carrying the vaccine, landed at Tribhuvan International Airport at 9.40 AM on Friday.

According to Ministry of Health and Population sources, although the vaccine were scheduled to arrive in Nepal on Saturday, Bhutan has sent the vaccine a day earlier.

The Ministry is planning to use the AstraZeneca vaccines received from Bhutan to the people including senior citizens who have not got the second dose of Covishield though they had got the first dose more than six months ago.

As many as 1.38 million people, including more than 950 thousand senior citizens, have not been able to get the second dose due to lack of vaccination.

The Department of Health Services is planning to inoculate the senior citizens with the second dose after receiving 1.6 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from Japan within the next two weeks from now.