Recently there has been lots of news regarding vaccines in Nepal. While Nepal already approved the AstraZeneca version made in India known regionally here as Covishield, it has now approved India’s homegrown COVAXIN in Nepal. It would seem China’s Sinovac is also expected to get approval soon. The Chinese gov’t has promised 800k doses. However, other nations like Peru are reporting problems with the vaccine. This report follows the EU’s delay in accepting UK’s AstraZeneca, which has now been re-approved for wide usage.
While the general populace still awaits Nepal’s vaccines, the gov’t has decided to offer vaccines to refugees. Nepal is the first Asia Pacific nation to do so even as their term on the UNHCR recently was renewed for a second term. Nepal began vaccinating on the 27th of January with the one million doses of India’s Covishield. Nepal was one of the first to receive vaccines via the COVAX program funded by the World Bank. As of mid-March, it is estimated some 1.6 million people have been vaccinated in the country out of a population of 30 million.
A rise in India’s cases is causing problems for Nepal at the border again as they had opened their borders when the numbers recently dwindled. India has seen its daily new caseload surpass 53k its largest spike in over five months since their annual festival season. What is most disconcerting is the fact that a new double mutated strain has apparently emerged in India! New cases in Nepal have been below a hundred daily with few deaths but are back on the rise, with three deaths reported recently and 145 new cases on the 23rd of March. Nepal has chosen to re-implement rigorous methods to prevent the rapid spread of these more unique strains canceling the annual widely popular public celebration of Holi. Holi was canceled last year. India has also further made conditions worse by halting the export of vaccines into Nepal and neighboring nations due to the uptick in cases there. Life is not able to return to normal as many would have hoped, seemingly as the virus is set to make a comeback. We hope for better news soon.
