KATHMANDU: The government is preparing to add two vaccines- Fractional-Dose Inactivated Poliovirus Vaccine (fIPV) and Rotavirus vaccine from coming January.

The vaccines will be introduced by the next five months, said Basanta Shrestha, officer at the immunisation section at the Child Health Division under the Department of Health Services.

"We are going to introduce the fIPV  in substitution for the Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV), which was being used previously and is in short supply across the world," he said.

IAPV would be administered to children who reach the age of 14  months . But the new fIPV should be injected two times (at the age of six weeks and 14 months).

The Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation (GAVI), which has been providing 70 percent of monetary help for the introduction of various 11 types of vaccines, will also provide monetary aid for the introduction of the new vaccines, Shrestha informed.

Earlier in 2016, the new vaccines could not be introduced due to a lack of managerial preparations, he informed.

The government has been providing 11 types of vaccines for free under the National Immunisation Programme. Every year, two billion rupees is spent on providing the vaccines for around 660,000 children across the country.

According to a survey carried out in 2016, immunisation programme covered 78 per cent of children across the country. However, another survey carried out in the same year counters that and claims the programme covered 87 per cent of children.

Director General of the Department of Health Services Rajendra Panta informed that preparations were underway to introduce new vaccines against cholera and typhoid within next three years.