Citizens above 60 to be vaccinated from March 7

KATHMANDU: The government is launching the second phase of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign from March 7.

The government, which is moving ahead with the vaccine procurement process against COVID-19, has decided to vaccinate citizens above 60 years of age from March 7.

A meeting of the Incident Command System held at the Ministry of Health on Wednesday decided to vaccinate citizens above 60 years of age against coronavirus.

According to the ministry, about 2.7 million senior citizens over the age of 60 are planned to be vaccinated. “We were told that there were more than 700,000 citizens over the age of 75. That number is said to be around 1.4 million. The ministry estimates that the total number of people over 60 will reach 2.7 million,” said a ministry source.

A vaccination campaign against COVID-19 was launched in Nepal on January 27.

In the first priority of the first phase, frontline health workers, security personnel, ambulance, hearse drivers, prison staff, inmates and cleaners were vaccinated.

The first and second priority was to vaccinate journalists, embassy staff and UN staff. At the same stage, government employees and the local level people’s representatives are being vaccinated.

It is said that this phase of the vaccination campaign will continue till February 20. A total of  2,63,048 people have been vaccinated so far, as of Tuesday evening.