By Our Reporter
Nepal has fully vaccinated 43.6 per cent of its total population against COVID-19 in a year after the launching of the vaccination campaign on January 27, 2021.
The government is intensifying the vaccination campaign in full swing as it aims to fully vaccinate 100 per cent of those above 18 years by mid-April.
According to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), of the total population, 16,412,555 people had received their first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 and 13,243,577 had received their full dose as of January 26.
The people were vaccinated either with the AstraZeneca vaccine (manufactured in India, Japan, and Europe), Vero Cell, developed by China’s Sinopharm, and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine of the United States of America.
As per the data of the MoHP, more than 29 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been safely administered in Nepal in a year, achieving 54 per cent first dose coverage and 43.6 per cent second dose or full vaccination coverage among the total population.
Similarly, the first dose and second dose coverage for the 18 years and above target group is 82.4 per cent and 66.5 per cent respectively. COVID-19 vaccination for all children and adolescents in the 12-17 years age group is also being conducted in 60 out of 77 districts. The government is expanding the campaign in the remaining districts soon.
Nepal launched the COVID-19 vaccination campaign on 27 January 2021. In the first phase of the rollout, vaccination was provided to front-line workers including health workers, followed by people over the age of 65 years.
Similarly, the vaccination was targeted to most high-risk and vulnerable groups at first, including refugees, prisoners, disabled persons, as well as the population in geographically disadvantaged areas.
As of January 26, the country has received 42,047,640 doses of vaccines including AstraZeneca, Vero Cell and Johnson and Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer.
Shortage of Vero Cell vaccines hamper government’s booster dose campaign
The government has finally started administering a booster dose of COVID-19 vaccines to the vulnerable population. It has also launched a mass vaccination campaign to cover all the people and students eligible to receive the jabs. Schools have been made the vaccination centre for five days beginning from January 31.
However, the government campaign to administer the booster dose has faced problems in the lack of Vero Cell vaccines because the majority of the people in Nepal had received Vero Cell vaccines as their first and second dose.
As the government used all the Chinese vaccines while giving the first and second dose to the people, it has no Vero Cell vaccines in its stock. As a result, the government has decided to administer Covishield vaccines as booster does to those who earlier received Vero Cell jabs. But no concrete study or experiment has been done to find whether a person who received Vero Cell vaccines earlier should be given vaccines produced by other companies.
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