Jiba Raj Pokharel

A mood of pessimism has pervaded the entire globe after the coronavirus pandemic outbreak. But the news of the availability of America's Pfizer and Moderna vaccines by the end of this year has injected much-needed optimism across the world. However, our authority is sure to find it a challenging to make available the life saving vaccines to the every nook and corner of Nepal, especially to the poor and deprived. The vaccines may take a long time to come to us.
Generally, it has been the trend such facilities become accessible first to the capital city's populace, that too to the rich and wealthy ones.

Pandemics In Nepal
Pandemics have been occurring since time immemorial. If we take the case of Nepal, the first mention of such a pandemic is found in Bhasha Bansawali in the time of Humati who was a Kirat King before Jitadisti.
Jitadisti is said to be the contemporary of Gautam Buddha. The first recorded occurrence of a pandemic, bisuchika, known as cholera can be attributed to about 650 BC. Gautam Buddha was born in 623 BC.
Nepal had to fight against pandemics on several occasions. Apart from cholera, plague and smallpox used to visit as an unwelcome guest. Smallpox in particular not only left scars in peoples' faces providing them with an ugly look but it had also claimed several lives. Queen Elizabeth of England, after surviving smallpox in 1592, used to apply heavy make up to conceal the scars. When Junga Bahadur carried out the first national census, 22,000 houses were recorded in Patan, out of which 2000 were depopulated due to smallpox.
The disease of smallpox is said to have its origin in Egypt where King Ramses V is believed to have died in the 12th century BC. It then came to India with the traders. Later, it spread almost to all the parts of the globe at an exponential pace.
In 1778, Edward Jenner mooted the idea of creating a vaccine and was successful through the laboratory experiment a year later in 1799. This was the year when Kantibati, sweetheart of rather a whimsical King Rana Bahadur Shah was infected by smallpox. The king paid homage to the Goddess Harati Ajima, the goddess of smallpox located in Swayamabhu quadrangle and several other goddesses in the Kathmandu Valley.
He also gave the gifts to the priests. But later when the queen died the King took back the gifts given to the priests. The hands of the herbal physicians were cruelly crushed between two hard stones. He also disfigured many temples and images. As if this was not enough, the King ordered to offer the incense to the God images by burning the human faeces. The whole campaign of the angry king is said to have cost a whopping Rs 100,000 which was a mind-blogging sum at that time.
In the early 19th century, Edwin Gardener held the position of the Resident Representative following the provision made in the Sugauli Treaty. Then the King Girvan Yuddha and his courtiers were offered a vaccine but it did not attract much attention because there was a practice of variolation, which consisted of crude injection of the remains of the smallpox wounds.
Besides, people believed in the worship of Sitala Goddess rather than taking recourse to new medication like a vaccine. As a result, the King died of smallpox in the year 1816.

Vaccine In Cities Only
Banepa was the luckiest and solitary city to get the vaccine facility on 13 September 1816. But the political events in Nepal leading to the death of the King followed by the emergence of Bhimshen Thapa coupled with the vaccine diplomacy to oblige with the British Government did not push the vaccine campaign forward.
Junga Bahadur is said to have got some vaccines from India for him and his relatives. The government then had only twin objectives: maintenance of law and order and the raising of the taxes. They were not so keen on looking after the medical requirements of the people.
With the dawn of democracy in 1956, the concern about the vaccination began to loom in the Nepali horizon.
The government had signed an agreement with WHO in 1966 and there was a nationwide vaccination campaign. But till 1972, smallpox cases were being reported which however came to an end by 1975.

Cholera Pandemic
Cholera has been another pandemic, which has been troubling the world for a long time. It is said to have its origin in India, which erupted because of poor living conditions in incredibly congested cities.
The outbreak of cholera pandemic of 1817 and afterwards in Calcutta had taken place on an alarming proportion. It covered almost the whole world. It was severe in England where thousands of the people used to fall victim due to filth around the city.
The Thames River was so polluted that the parliamentarians refused to work from the recently constructed parliament building located by its bank due to bad smell. This period also had an ironic distinction of having so many years of great stink. The pandemic was at its highest peak when Junga Bahadur visited England in the year 1850.
Britishers attributed cholera to miasma, which was supposed to be some bad air that emanated from rotting organic matter. However, John Snow, an epidemiologist who is credited for the discovery of anaesthesia held the contamination of faeces in drinking water responsible for this disease in 1854. Russian bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine had developed the cholera vaccine only in 1892.
In Nepal, cholera has been an annual phenomenon right from the time of Kirat King Humati but it was seen very glaringly in the year 1823 when Dharahara was constructed. Later, it reared its ugly head regularly in 1831, 1843, 1856, 1862 and again almost annually in one city or the other. Most recently in the year 2014, cholera incidents were reported in Rautahat district. It came into a global debate when Nepali peacekeeping force was suspected of transmitting it in Haiti after it was hit by an earthquake in 2010.

Availability of vaccine
A fleeting glance of the smallpox vaccine development in England and its availability in Nepal reveals that it took 167 years for the initiation of the Government in Nepal. Even the cholera vaccine became available only after 1960, almost 70 years after its invention back in the year 1892.
There are various factors responsible for this state of affairs and most prominent factor being the inertia of the government authority to change, inaccessible difficult terrains of Nepal and the existence of an unaccountable government.
People are now more receptive to change while the transport, as well as communication facilities, have made dramatic progress compared to the 19th century. The government has already formed a committee to procure the required amount of the COVID vaccines. However, it appears that it is going to be a Herculean task because the vaccines require to be stored at a temperature as low as minus 20 to minus 70-degree centigrade before they are given to the people. Shortage of cold storage chain facilities, along with other problems, may give a headache to our authority in procuring these vital COVID vaccines.

(Pokharel is former vice chancellor of NAST)