KATHMANDU, August 14: The Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) has said the inoculation of the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine after a long interval of the first dose would still be effective.

The ministry’s Joint-spokesperson Dr Samir Kumar Adhikari said the second dose of Covishield vaccine given to the citizens above 65 years of age in a gap of around five months of the first dose would still work. Around 1.45 million people above 65 years of age received their first jab of Covishield between March 7 to 23 and were recently given the AstraZeneca vaccine as the second dose. 

Though it was said there should be a gap of two-three months between the two doses of Covishield or AstraZeneca vaccines, senior citizens were given the second dose after five months. According to Dr Adhikari, research made during this period suggests that the first dose would continue to work and the second shot after a long interval would still be effective. 

He urged the people concerned not to have any doubt over getting AstraZeneca as the substitute of the second dose for Covishield even in a gap of five months.

Nepal was recently gifted 230,513 doses of AstraZeneca from Bhutan and Japan respectively.  

Covishield and AstraZeneca are developed on the same formula with just different brand names, according to Dr Adhikari, So far 4.65 million population have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines including Vero Cell and Johnson & Johnson while the number of fully vaccinated people is 3.22 million.

(With inputs from RSS)

 
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• Covishield
 
• AstraZeneca