KATHMANDU, March 2: Nepal, which has been conducting a vaccination campaign against COVID-19 infection, has so far achieved remarkable success. Nepal is currently ranked fourth among South Asian countries for vaccinating most of its population against the infection. Although the vaccination campaign is being conducted continuously, the data provided by the government shows that the campaign is not effective according to the geography of the country.
As per the national census data of 2021, the Terai region of Nepal holds 53.66 percent of the country’s population. The population of the Terai region is over 15.5 million. Of the 13.3 million eligible citizens for vaccination in the region, over 10 million citizens have received the first dose of vaccine, while just over nine million have received both doses. Of the total eligible citizens, just 64 percent have received full doses of the vaccines against COVID-19. This vaccination rate in Terai is lower than in the Hilly and the Himalayan region.
According to the information provided by the Family Welfare Division of the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), 78 percent of the eligible citizens have received the full dose of the vaccine in the hilly region while 75 percent of the citizens have been vaccinated in the Himalayan region.
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The Himalayan region of Nepal has a population of over 1.7 million expanding over 20 districts in the region, which is just 6.9 percent of the country’s total population. The statistics provided by the MoHP indicates that the number of people who have received the full dose of the vaccines is higher than the number of people who received their first dose. While the number of people who received the first dose of vaccine is over 1.66 million, as many as 1.68 million people have received both doses of the vaccines in the region. There are a total of 2.14 million eligible citizens for vaccines in the hilly region.
Similarly, the hilly region of the country expands over 29 districts and has a population of 11.74 million. There are 5.34 million eligible citizens for vaccination above the age of 12. Of them, 3.84 million have received the first dose while 4.51 million people have received both doses of the vaccines.
Nepal started the vaccination campaign against COVID-19 on January 27 last year. The government has vaccinated people above the age of 12 to 60 with COVISHIELD, Vero Cell, Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, and Moderna vaccines.
According to MoHP, as many as 21.5 million people have received the first dose of vaccines against COVID-19 in the country. Likewise, 10.7 million people have received both doses of vaccines. With this, 60.1 percent of the country has been fully vaccinated against the deadly infection while 74 percent of the population have already received the first dose of the vaccine.
So far, Nepal has received 40.7 million doses of vaccines. Of them, 30.7 million have already been administered to the public, while over 1.1 million have received extra doses of the vaccines.
