KATHMANDU, JULY 16
Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) is sending its aircraft to China on a regular basis from July 21 to bring Vero Cell vaccines.
According to NAC's Chief of Operations, Deepraj Juharchan, the supply of anti-COVID-19 vaccines from China would kick off from July 21.
Earlier, the NAC had put off its schedule to transport the vaccine by a week after the Chinese vaccine manufacturing company apprised that it needed some more time to manage the supplies.
The Corporation has scheduled three flights to China to ferry the vaccines.
The first flight has been scheduled for 5:45 am on July 21, and the next two on July 22 and July 24.
Government of Nepal is purchasing the vaccines from China in accordance with the non-disclosure agreement.
Prior to this, on July 9, the government had procured about 800 thousand doses of vaccines from China which led to the resumption of the vaccination drive against the pandemic.
Similarly, Nepal is receiving some more vaccines under the COVAX facility.
According to Dr Krishna Prasad Poudel, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population, the COVAX facility is expected to provide vaccines sufficient for six million people.
On July 12, Nepal received 1.534 million Johnson and Johnson single-dose vaccine under the same global scheme.
Before this, 348 thousand doses of vaccines were supplied to Nepal under the facility.
The government has targeted administering the anti-COVID-19 vaccines to 22 million people above 18 years of age.
So far, 2.62 million have received the first shot of the vaccines while 1.18 million people have received the full (two) doses.
Covishield, Vero Cell and Johnson and Johnson vaccines have so far been used in Nepal.
