Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) is sending its aircraft to China on a regular basis from July 21 to bring Vero Cell vaccines reports RSS.

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.

According to RSS, 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.

According to The Rising Nepal, Nepal has received a total of 6,582,850 doses of COVID-19 vaccines via grants, purchases and under the COVAX facility so far.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), a total of 290,000 doses as a grant, 1,882,850 doses under the COVAX program and 1,800,000 doses from purchasing have been bought to date.

A total of 348,000 doses of the Covishield vaccine were donated for the first time to Nepal under the COVAX facility on the first week of March.

Similarly, 1,534, 850 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine under the COVAX facility have arrived in Nepal on July 12 making a total of 1,882,850 doses under the COVAX facility.

Under grants, India provided 1 million doses of Covishield vaccine in vaccination grants on Jan 27. Wherefrom, Nepal launched the vaccination programme for the first time. India has also provided 1 lakh of Covishield vaccine to the Nepal Army as well.

Similarly, China had given 1.8 million doses of the Vero Cell vaccine as a grant. This makes a total of 2,900,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine received under grant.

Nepal had purchased 2 million doses of Covishield vaccines from Serum Institute, but, has received only 1 million so far. Under the purchase, 1 million doses of vaccine have been received from India and 8 lakhs from China, making the total of 1,800,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

A spokesperson at the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) Dr Krishna Prasad Paudel has confirmed that 1.6 million vaccines from China and 1.6 million from Japan will arrive in Nepal.

Under the non-disclosure agreement with China, 3.2 million doses of vaccine are yet to come. According to the ministry, an additional 6.4 million doses of vaccine will arrive in Nepal in a few days and 3.2 million purchased from China are expected to arrive within the next 10 days as well.

Total Vaccinated people

According to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), so far, a total of 1,397,959 people have received the 2nd doses, whereas, more than 2.7 million people have received their first jabs, implying that more than half of receiving the first dose is yet to receive their booster. Similarly, a total of 2,765,709 people have received the first dose of the Covishield vaccine and Vero Cell vaccine.

In addition, only 460,734 people have received their full dose of the Covishield vaccine, and 659,548 people have received their full dose of the Vero Cell vaccine.