KATHMANDU, Jan 30: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Saturday changed his statement of administering every Nepali citizen with the COVID-19 vaccine within the next three months.
Attending a program in Chitwan, PM Oli said that frontline workers fighting against COVID-19 will get shots of the vaccine within three months, while the general public will be administered the vaccine by the end of 2021.
Curing corona
While inaugurating the vaccination campaign, PM Oli had claimed that the government was working to administer COVID-19 vaccines to all the general public for free within the next three months. However, PM Oli has now changed his statement, saying that it will take more than a year for the government to administer the vaccine to all citizens.
The claim of the prime minister, however, was slammed even by the authorities at the Ministry of Health and Population as procuring vaccines and administering it to the public was a “next to impossible” task within three months.
The government, on Jan 27, started a vaccination drive against COVID-19 across the country. In the first phase, the government is inoculating at least 450,000 frontline workers with the ‘Covishield’ vaccine gifted by the Government of India.
The Government of India had gifted a million doses of ‘Covishied’ vaccine to Nepal.