KATHMANDU: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has summoned a meeting of Council of Ministers today as the one-week term extension of nationwide lockdown first imposed on March 24 nears end.

The cabinet will review the lockdown phase while also making a decision on taking the shutdown to its third week.

The Government of Nepal had decreed a week long nationwide lockdown on March 24, which was further extended for a week in a bid to control the spread of coronavirus pandemic in the country.

So far, nine cases have been confirmed of which eight are active. Three cases were reported on Saturday, April 4. One of the three cases was the first local person-to-person transmission to have been identifies after which the government had declared that Nepal had entered stage-two of the virus transmission.