By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, June 23: The Supreme Court has issued an interim order directing the government to immediately provide second dose of vaccine against COVID-19 to the senior citizens who have already received the first jab of Covishield.
During a hearing on a writ petition filed by Arjun Raj and others on Tuesday, the top court ordered the government to provide the second dose of the vaccine to the people aged above 65 years.
Devendra Dhakal, information officer at the SC, said, “The court has also issued a show-cause order in the name of the government.”
In February last year, a single bench of Justice Ishwar Khatiwada had issued an interim order calling the government to make arrangements to provide second jab to those senior citizens.
Meanwhile, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the second dose of Covishield should be administered within eight to 12 weeks after receiving the first jab. However, around 1.3 million senior citizens in Nepal, who had received their first dose 12 weeks before, still have not been able to receive the second dose.
With 3,703 new confirmed cases on Tuesday, the countrywide total COVID-19 tally has now reached 626,343, confirmed via PCR tests and another 28,127 via antigen tests.
According to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), 819 tested positive for virus in the antigen tests done in the past 24 hours.
Nepal has now recorded 564,882 recoveries with 4,954 recovered in
the last 24 hours. The recovery rate now stands at 90.2 per cent.
The country also reported 41 deaths related to COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, taking the total death toll to 8,813.
With 12,204 PCR-tests conducted in the past 24 hours, the total number of that tests have reached 3,288,053 to date. Likewise, 151,592 antigen tests have been performed as of now, as per the MoHP.

Active COVID-19 caseload across the nation has slightly dropped to 52,648 on Tuesday. Among the active cases, 3,223 are admitted to various health facilities while remaining 49,425 patients are in home isolation.
As per the latest update, 761 COVID-19 patients are admitted to the Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and 218 are under treatment with ventilator support across the nation.
Health experts have urged one and all to abide by all the health safety protocols, owing to the risk of resurgence of next wave of COVID-19 with the relaxation of the restriction order.
Dr. Sher Bahadur Pun, chief of the clinical research unit at Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital, Teku, said that the cases may not surge after easing of restriction order if the herd immunity was developed. “We need to take time and see if many people have developed natural antibodies against the virus,” said Dr. Pun.
“The strict enforcement of restriction order helped break the chain of infection, due to which number of cases has declined. It will take at least two weeks to surge COVID-19 cases,” added Dr. Pun.
As many waves of COVID-19 infection have resurged worldwide, Dr. Pun emphasised on strict adoption of health safety standards, immunisation against COVID-19 and contract tracing to mitigate the possibility of the other round of outbreak.
Dr. Krishna Prasad Poudel, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), said that the decision to ease the restriction was made after monitoring the status of local transmission.
Dr. Poudel urged the public to adopt a new normal by adhering to all the health safety standards.
Dr. Poudel, however, expressed worries about the possibility of resurgence of COVID-19 cases and the burden that the country will have to face in case people neglect to abide by the protocols after the relaxation of the restriction order.  
Dr. Poudel assured said that the government was striving to procure the COVID-19 vaccine by utilising all the resources and that the people would be provided with the second dose of the vaccine at the earliest. 
“The extension of restriction order is not only the solution to get rid of the virus,” said Dr. Basudev Pandey, a virologist.
As many waves of infection have been resurging, it is essential to carry out rapid contact tracing, to intensify vaccination campaign, to monitor and enforce strict restriction at hot spots,” said Dr. Pandey.