Bhutan delivers 230,000* AstraZeneca Covishield vaccines to Nepal

KATHMANDU, August 5: The Bhutan government has delivered 230,000* doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal.

Senior officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) confirmed that an aircraft from Thimpu brought in the vaccines to Kathmandu on Friday morning. The Bhutan government handed over the vaccines as per the agreement to return the vaccines to Bhutan later when Nepal starts receiving the Covishield vaccines it has reached an agreement with Serum Institute, India to procure Covishield vaccines.

Of the 2 million procurement agreement reached earlier, the Serum Institute has supplied only 1 million vacccines to Nepal so far.

The government plans to administer the vaccines to the elderly people who earlier received the first dose of Covishield vaccines, but are waiting for months to receive their second dose. This comes a day before the Japanese government is delivering 800,000 of the total 1.6 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines on Saturday and Sunday. 

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has said that Nepal welcomes the friendly gesture of Bhutan in aiding Nepal's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. "Many thanks to the His Majesty the King and Prime Minister of Bhutan for the cooperative arrangement in the supply of 230,000 doses of the Covishield vaccine, which Nepal will reciprocate at a later date," he wrote in twitter. 

*Corrected