Nepal receives another shipment of 1 million Made-in-India COVID-19 vaccines

Kathmandu [Nepal], February 21 : Nepal received another shipment of one million doses of Made-in-India coronavirus vaccines on Sunday.
The second shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) under the name Covishield, arrived at the Tribhuvan International Airport in the capital city of Kathmandu on Sunday afternoon.
The vaccines, the first of the two batches of two million doses in total, were brought via Air India's New Delhi-Kathmandu 1:30 pm flight.
The vaccines will be stored at the cold storage unit in Teku, The Himalayan Times reported.
This lot of vaccines would be used to inoculate people above 60 years of age, which is 8.73 per cent of Nepal's population, in the vaccination drive that will begin on March 7.
According to the Nepali Ministry of Health and Population, there are 2,652,258 elderly people above 60 years in the country.
The remaining doses of the vaccines will be obtained according to the agreement with the vaccine producer SII and the timetable proposed by the Department of Health Service, the MoHP said.
The Government of Nepal on January 15 approved the use of Covishield developed by the SII for emergency use.
Nepal began its nationwide inoculation drive after receiving one million Covishield vaccines, from the Indian government earlier this year.