KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 1
The Ministry of Health and Population has decided to use Covishield/AstraZeneca vaccine as the booster shot for people above 60 years of age even if they had received other shots - Moderna, Pfizer, or Vero Cell - in the past.
The ministry recently decided to provide booster shots to people above 60 and those with compromised immunity.
The ministry also decided to provide a second dose of Covishield or AstraZeneca vaccine to those who had already received the first dose of Vero Cell, Moderna, or Pfizer, but are unable to receive the second dose of the same vaccine due to its shortage.
In the case of those people who received the first dose of AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer, or Vero Cell vaccines in foreign countries will also receive Covishield/AstraZeneca vaccines.
A notice sent by the Family Welfare Bureau of the ministry to all district health offices states that the ministry took the decision about booster shots as per recent decisions of WHO SAGE, National Immunisation Advisory Committee, and Health Minister Birodh Khatiwada.
Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population Sangeeta Mishra said that from now on Covishield vaccines should be used as both primary series and booster doses unless the ministry changed its decision.
She said that the ministry decided to use heterologous vaccines after the World Health Organisations approved it.
"Our National Immunisation Advisory Committee had earlier decided to go for homologous vaccines but after the WHO approved heterologous vaccines, we also decided to go for it," Mishra said.
She said the government was well within its target of vaccinating 40 per cent of population (above 12) by mid-February.
Asked if the government would be able to meet its target of vaccinating the population by mid-April, Mishra said they were trying their best to meet the target. She, however, said that lack of coordination between the three tiers of government was an issue that had hindered the central government's plan.
"We tell local governments to run vaccination campaign every day and meet certain target but sometimes they interpret our directive in different ways. I think that's a problem we face at the moment," she added.
The government will start providing booster shots to the general public once the National Immunisation Advisory Committee decides on it, Mishra added.
Assistant Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population Samir Kumar Adhikari said the ministry decided to go for heterologous vaccines as trial reports confirmed the efficacy of such vaccines. He said the government had received 40.3 million COVID vaccines of which around 10 million were in its storage. Adhikari said the government had already started providing booster shots to people above 60.
A version of this article appears in the print on February 2, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
