Health office starts providing first dose of Astra Zeneca Vaccine

Kathmandu / Aug. 18: The Health Office, Kathmandu has started providing the first dose of Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine to general public.

As the Office said, people who have requested for the vaccine through online registration are included in the vaccination drive that kicked off Tuesday.

Earlier, Nepal had received 230 thousand doses of Astra Zeneca vaccine from Bhutan and 513 thousand of doses from Japan. Earlier, the vaccine was given to the senior citizens above 65 as the second for Covishield and the leftover doses are being administered to others.

According to Dr Jhalak Sharma Gautam, Chief of Child Health and Immunization Section, Department of Health Services, said all senior citizens getting the first shot of Covishield might have not taken the Astra Zeneca as the second dose and that’s why there are leftover doses of the vaccine. All local levels in the Kathmandu district have the COVID-19 vaccination centres.

According to the Office, the Kathmandu Metropolis has five vaccination centres followed by each at Kirtipur, Tarakeshwor, Nagarjun, Budhanilkantha, Kageshwori-Manahara, Tokha and Gokarneshwor municipalities.

Radhaswami Isolation Centre, Nepal Police Hospital, Bir Hospital, Birendra Military Hospital and Civil Hospital have served as the COVID-19 vaccination centres for the Kathmandu Metropolis and it plans to add more centres as on a need basis. RSS