Nepal on Wednesday started inoculating essential workers using the Chinese Sinopharm vaccines, reported the Kathmandu Post. This comes after the delivery of the Covishield vaccines from the Serum Institute of India got delayed. 

Earlier, China had gifted 800,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccines to Nepal. Essential workers include people from postal and telephone services, public transportation, water supply and distribution, hotels and restaurants, and workers engaged in production, sales, and distribution of medicines, electricity supply, storage, and transportation of consumer goods.

Health workers who missed out in the first phase of vaccination that began on January 27 can also get the Chinese jabs. Authorities also decided to include those people--businessmen and students--who frequently make visits to China. The decision was taken in the wake of China introducing the vaccine visa scheme. 

China in December last year announced the efficiency of the Sinopharm vaccine at 79 percent. However, the UAE, the first foreign country that started using it, had reported 86 percent efficiency for the same vaccine.

Several countries initially avoided using Chinese vaccines due to insufficient data and reliability issues. Many countries, including Sri Lanka, who had received the vaccines from China in donations, are yet to start using them.