Lack of vaccines is posing a crisis for Nepal, with its government unsure of giving the second shot to 1.3 million people above 65 years who were administered the first jab of Covishield which was now not available due to the precarious Covid situation in India.

Nepali senior citizens were administered the first dose of Covishield, the AstraZeneca type vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, The Kathmandu Post reported.

After inoculating 438,000 people in the first phase from January 27 to March 5, the government conducted the second phase of the vaccination campaign from March 7 to March 15.

According to the government schedule, the booster doses to the 1.3 million people should have been given starting from Monday.

“We do not have vaccines to provide second shots to people above 65 years old, who were given the first doses in the second phase,” Samir Kumar Adhikari, joint spokesperson for the Health Ministry, told the Post. “We can say when they will get their second shots only after we get the vaccines.”

Based on the doses of vaccines Nepal has received so far, there are 240,000 doses of Covishield at different health facilities across the country. The stock is just not enough.

Nepal launched its vaccination drive after receiving one million doses of Covishield from India under grant assistance. A consignment of additional one million doses – of the two million doses for which Nepal had paid the Serum Institute of India –arrived on February 21.

The second shipment of the remaining one million doses was expected to arrive within weeks, if not days. But it did not.

Meanwhile, India faced its own Covid-19 crisis, and on March 24, New Delhi put a hold on the export of AstraZeneca jabs to meet demands at home.

Government officials say their only hope now is COVAX, a facility that has among its partners UNICEF and the World Health Organisation, which has committed to providing Nepal with 13 million doses to inoculate six million people (20 percent of the 30 million population).

The Covid-19 crisis in India, however, has left COVAX in the lurch.

The BBC reported on Monday that the COVAX facility that aimed to ensure equal access to Covid-19 vaccines is 140 million doses short because of India's continuing Covid-19 crisis.

"Unfortunately, we're in a situation where we just don't know when the next set of doses will materialise," Gian Gandhi, UNICEF's COVAX co-ordinator for supply, told the BBC. "Our hope is, things will get back on track, but the situation in India is uncertain… and a huge concern."

Under pressure, UNICEF, the in-charge of supplying vaccines for COVAX, now is calling on the G7 countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – as well as the European Union, to donate their surplus vaccines urgently.

Nepal government officials are now moving the goalposts.

Pokhrel said that the second dose can be administered within 16 weeks.

“India too has extended the gap between the first and the second dose. It is better to administer the two doses between eight and 12 weeks, but that is in an ideal situation… when vaccines are available,” Pokhrel, the director of the Family Welfare Division, told the Post. “But if we do not have any other option, the second dose can be administered in 16 weeks.”

(SAM)