By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Aug. 30: The government is conducting vaccination campaign on a priority basis, after securing certain doses of vaccines. As vaccine is the only way to control the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has planned to inoculate 78 per cent of its total population. The total population of Nepal stands at 30,446,381, as per the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Census 2011.
A total of 5,063,522 people (16.6 per cent) have taken their first dose of vaccine and 4,527,765 people (13.5 per cent) have been fully vaccinated, so far.

The people were vaccinated either with the AstraZeneca vaccine (manufactured in India, Japan, and Europe), Vero Cell, developed by China’s Sinopharm, and Johnson & Johnson vaccine of the United States of America.
The number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people in Nepal has reached 30, said Dr. Krishna Prasad Poudel, spokesperson at the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP).
According to the government’s new plan, children aged between 12 and 17 are also included in the vaccination programme. The government earlier planned to vaccinate only those aged above 14 years.
The government still needs more than 40 million doses of vaccines to inoculate its citizen.

As of Sunday, the country has received 13,357,590 doses of vaccines including AstraZeneca, Vero Cell and Johnson & Johnson.
Nepal launched its vaccination campaign on January 27 with the 1 million doses of Covishield received in grant assistance from India under its Vaccine Maitri programme. Covishield is the AstraZeneca type vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

In the first week of March, COVAX facility supplied 348,000 doses of Covishield. Towards the end of March, 800,000 doses of Vero

Cell were provided by China, under grant assistance. Again in June, an additional 1 million doses of Vero Cell under Chinese grant arrived in Kathmandu.
On March 28, the Indian Army had provided 100,000 doses of Covishield to the Nepal Army for army personnel and their dependents.
The United States through COVAX facility provided 1.5 million doses of single shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine on June 12.
Similarly, on August 6, the government of Bhutan supplied 230,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Japan sent 513,420 doses on August 7 and 333,900 doses on August 8, as a part of its commitment to providing 1.6 million doses through COVAX facility. Then 208,060 doses were provided to Nepal on August 21. And on August 23, the remaining 559,360 doses were delivered by the Japanese government. Similarly, Nepal received 130,000 doses of COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccines in grant from the United Kingdom on August 26.
The government had said that 20 million doses of vaccine would arrive in the country by mid-October.

The Ministry of Health and Population has been working to purchase an additional 6 million doses of the Vero Cell vaccine from China.
The government has already paid for 4 million doses of the Moderna vaccine to the US manufacturer through the World Bank, and its delivery is expected by mid-February.
Similarly, 11 million doses of vaccines from COVAX under a cost-sharing mechanism are also expected to arrive by mid-February.

As the government is also initiating to vaccinate children between 12-17 years, the process to procure 6 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is also going on.
Meanwhile, the MoHP on Sunday reported 1,388 new cases of COVID-19, of which 1,214 were detected through PCR tests and 174 were detected through antigen tests. With this, the nationwide infection tally through PCR test has reached 759,222 and that of antigen test 82,971. The active caseload of COVID-19 stands at 35,796 and recovery has reached 712,712 as of Sunday.
The country also reported 24 deaths in the last 24 hours and the death toll stands at 10,741.