Kathmandu: Nepal has received over 5 lakh doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from Japan to help the Himalayan nation boost its vaccination drive to contain the contagious coronavirus spread, a senior official said on Monday.
This is the last batch of the total 1.6 million doses the government of Japan had pledged to the Nepal government through COVAX, a United Nations-backed international vaccine-distribution scheme.
We have received the final consignment of 559, 360 vaccines from Japan today, Upendra Dhungana, the chief of the Logistic Management Division under the Department of Health Services, told reporters here.
Earlier this month, a total of 1,055,380 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in Japan were provided.
The government of Japan in July had announced that it would provide 1,614,740 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine through COVAX.
Health Ministry officials said that these doses will be used to give second doses to those who had taken their first doses of Covishield, the AstraZeneca type of vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India, in the second week of March.
Around 1.4 million people aged 65 and above, who had taken first doses of Covishield between March 7 and 15 were deprived of their second doses as Nepal had failed to secure additional doses of AstraZeneca vaccine.
After Bhutan supplied 230,000 doses and Japan supplied the first consignment of AstraZeneca vaccine, the government started giving second doses to those who took their first doses in March from August 9.
Meanwhile, on Monday those who recovered from coronavirus infection in Nepal outnumbered those who got infected from the virus.
In the past 24 hours, Nepalâs Health Ministry recorded 1,801 new Covidâ 19 cases, taking the countryâs corona infection case tally to 829,443.
During the period 1,924 corona infected patients have recovered from the disease. Similarly, 24 people died due to corona infection taking the Covidâ 19 death toll to 10,533.
So far, 700,097 people have achieved recovery from the disease. Currently there are 38,351 corona active people receiving treatment at various isolation centres including home isolation across Nepal.