KATHMANDU: The government in the first phase is preparing to achieve a vaccine against the coronavirus sufficient to 20 percent of the population.
Currently, different countries are going through the final phase trial of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Ministry of Health and Population has formed different eight sub-committees to handle the procedures relating to the purchase of vaccines and their administration.
Chief of Child and Immunization Section, Dr. Jhalak Sharma Gautam, said preparations are going on to achieve vaccine sufficient for 20 percent population under the ‘COVAX Facility’, the joint mechanism of, GAVI, CEPI and the World Health Organization (WHO). The vaccine will be brought on a subsidy.
Still, the vaccines are in the trial phase and the selection of vaccines has not been made yet. Vaccines to be achieved through the COVAX will be free of charge. We are waiting for the success of the final trial of (any) vaccine.
According to Dr. Sharma, Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, Jamelia (Russia) and Oxford AstraZeneca are in the third-phase trials and one of them will be brought to the country. The vaccine will be registered in the manufacturing country, then in the WHO, and in the country’s DDA.
Informing that Covid-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer and BioNTech Company (Russia), Moderna (the United States of America), and Oxford AstraZeneca (the United Kingdom) are under test, Dr. Sharma Gautam said vaccines produced by one of them would be brought to Nepal.
The vaccines to be imported to Nepal would be registered in the country that has produced them and thereafter in the World Health Organization before its registration in the Department of Drug Administration in Nepal.
A vaccine fund secretariat has been set up under the leadership of the Director-General of the Department of Health Services Dr Dipendra Raman Singh.
Even the discussions with various diplomatic missions and training sessions for health workers relating to storage and distribution of the vaccines are underway, said Co-Spokesperson for the Ministry Dr. Samir Kumar Adhikari. “Preparations are underway to import the vaccines after their final successful test,” he said.
The Covid-19 vaccines produced across the globe have been under three phases of the test.
In Nepal, in the first phase, the vaccines would be administered to elderly people with chronic diseases, health workers, and employees who are on the frontline against the infection, it has been said.
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