Kathmandu: China’s military on Monday talented health material, including 300,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine, to the Nepal Army, a official statement said.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) handed over the Nepalese Army with 3 doses of the Vero Cell vaccine, 100 units of oxygen concentrators and other health materials, according to press releases issued by the Nepal Army Headquarters.
The Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi handed over health materials to the Army Chief of Staff General Nepal Prabhu Ram Sharma at the Army headquarters.
“We received 300,000 doses of Cell Vero vaccines from the Chinese army,” Brigadier General Santosh Ballosh Poudyal, a Nepalese Army spokesman, quoted by Post Kathmandu.
“We will use Jab to army personnel, who have not been vaccinated and provide second dose to those who have taken the first dose of Vero cells.
The vaccine will also be given to the dependence of the army personnel,” Poudyal said.
Press releases said that the army stated the confidence that the cooperation would further consolidate the relationship between the troops of the two countries.
The vaccine arrived on Monday after Beijing supplied 1.6 million cellular doses for Nepal with the help of grants, the post was reported.
China in the past has provided 800,000 doses and 1 million doses of Vero cell vaccines separately.
Also, the Chinese Red Cross has provided 100,000 Vero cell doses to Nepal Red Cross Society.
So far, China has provided 3.8 million doses of Vero cell vaccines with grant assistance.
China has also promised to provide an additional 3 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine including 1 million doses of Sinovac vaccine in grant assistance, the report said.
Nepal has bought 10 million doses of Vero cell vaccines through the non-disclosure agreement from China, he said.
Separately, the government has bought more than 5.9 million vaccine doses through the mechanism for the distribution of covax costs.
From this, Covax last week supplied 1.02 million doses of Vero cell vaccine.
Vaccines are purchased using loans from the Asian Development Bank, the report said.
Nepal has so far used Astrazeneca vaccines produced in India, Japan and Europe; Vero Cell was developed by Sinopharm of China, and Janssen’s single-shot made by Johnson & Johnson in the United States.
Nepal launched the Covid-19 vaccination campaign on January 27 with 1 million doses of covishield from India.
Overall, this country has received 22,079,810 doses of Covid-19 Vaccines-Vero Cell, AstraZeneca, Janssen and Pfizer-Biontonech, said the report.
The US on October 25 provides 100,620 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to Nepal.
Vaccines are provided under US commitment to Covax.
However, the Nepalese government has not used the Pfizer vaccine.
Nepal reported 390 cases of new coronavirus and five related deaths in the last 24 hours, took the Caseload Country Virus and the toll die to 909,765 and 11,453.
each.