Nepal likely to receive one million more COVID vaccine doses from India

KATHMANDU: Nepal is likely to receive 100,000 more doses of COVID-19 vaccines from India next week.

Sources said the Government of India has assured that one million doses of vaccine against Covid-19 purchased from Serum Institute will be made available in Nepal by the third week of April.

Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali and his Indian counterpart Dr. S. Jaishankar held a telephone conversation on last week on the issue.

India has responded that the arrival of the remaining vaccines has been delayed due to a short-term ban on vaccine exports due to domestic consumption.

The Nepal government has decided to procure a total of two million doses of the vaccine manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India.

The Government of Nepal has already paid 80 percent of the total amount in advance to the Serum Institute for 2 million doses of vaccine.

Nepal has already received 348,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines under the COVAX initiative.

Under the COVAX allocation, the COVAX facility will deliver 1.92 million vaccine doses to Nepal by the end of May 2021, in support of the Government of Nepal’s nation-wide vaccination campaign.

Likewise, Nepal has also received the one million doses of Covishield vaccine it bought from India’s Serum Institute.

Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covishield is being manufactured by Serum Institute of India which has collaborated with Oxford University and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca for making the vaccine.

India has already gifted one million doses of Covishield vaccine to Nepal.

India has also sent consignments of coronavirus vaccines under grant assistance to Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Mauritius and Seychelles.