Nepal's Army Chief gets Made-in-India Covid-19 vaccine's first dose

Nepal's Chief of Army Staff, Purna Chandra Thapa on Monday received his first dose of the Made-in-India Covid-19 vaccine. 

Nepal last month received the second shipment of one million doses of the coronavirus vaccines. The AstraZeneca vaccine is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) under the name Covishield.  

Nepal began its nationwide inoculation drive after receiving the first one million Covishield vaccines following the emergency use approval in January.  

An Air India aircraft carrying the consignment of Covid-19 vaccines had landed at the Tribhuvan International Airport in the morning, according to sources at the Indian Embassy in Nepal. 

The Nepal government has decided to procure a total of two million doses of the vaccine manufactured by the SII. Last month, India gifted one million doses of Covishield vaccine to Nepal. 

The Nepal government has already started administering the vaccines on health workers, security personnel and journalists on priority basis. 

The second 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.  

India is one of the world's biggest drugmakers and an increasing number of countries have already approached it for procuring coronavirus vaccines. 

India, under the Vaccine Maitri initiative, has been providing coronavirus vaccines to its neighbouring countries.  

India has sent consignments of domestically produced coronavirus vaccines under grant assistance to Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Mauritius and Seychelles. 

It is also undertaking commercial supplies of the doses to a number of countries, including Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil and Morocco.