KATHMANDU: Prime Minister KP Oli has thanked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for coronavirus vaccines.

“I thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as the Government and people of India for the generous grant of one million doses of COVID vaccine to Nepal at this critical time when India is rolling out vaccination for its own people,”
Oli said in a tweet.

Nepal appreciates this gesture from a friendly neighbor, Prime Minister Oli added.

The first batch of COVID-19 vaccine provided by India has arrived in Kathmandu on Thursday.

An aircraft of Air India carrying COVID-19 vaccines landed at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu said.

Earlier today, Anurag Srivastava, official spokesperson for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs had tweeted that the first consignment of India-made COVID-19 vaccines has taken off for Nepal.

The Government of India had on Wednesday announced to provide 1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal under grant assistance.

The vaccines will be inoculated to the frontline health workers, employees, and security personnel in the first phase.

It should be noted that Nepal had given conditional approval to use Serum India Institute’s AstraZeneca Covishield against the COVID-19 last week.