Kathmandu 27 December : .As Omicron Covid-19 looms large in Nepal, it is trying to get its population vaccinated against the virus. Officials from the South Asian nation, Xinhua, stated that despite receiving a constant supply of vaccines over the past months, they are now having trouble storing them and inoculating more people because of a lack of sufficient storage capacity.
According to Ministry of Health and Population, only 32.9 percent of Nepal’s 30-million-plus population have been fully immunized.
Sher Bahadur Pu, chief medical officer of the Kathmandu-based Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital told Xinhua that “the level of vaccination remains low amid the Omicron menace.”
I have noticed that many older adults haven’t been vaccinated because they are not willing to wait in line at the vaccine centres.He said that some people still don’t know the value of vaccinations to prevent the pandemic.
Officials from Nepal’s health department acknowledged the low vaccination rates and are working to improve them.
Bibek Kumar, Director of Family Welfare Division of Department of Health Services said that the World Health Organization advised us to raise the percentage of fully-vaccinated people to 40% by December.We are getting close to this level.”
After first immunizing people 18 years old and over, we have now launched a campaign to protect people 12-17.
Three Omicron cases have been identified in Nepal so far.Officials said that despite this potential danger, Nepal cannot increase or triple its vaccination rates anytime soon.
We have been inoculating around 250,000 people every day.Sagar Dahal (chief of the National Immunization Program) said that sometimes we have inoculated up to 350,000 people.
“In the past we only vaccinated 300,000.00 people per day.”
He said that the government was working to increase vaccinations, which began in January.
He said that the vaccine drive is facing difficulties due to a lack of logistics and trained personnel.
It also requires time to increase public awareness and generate momentum.
Lal stated that “Due the delay in the supply of syringes the vaccination campaigns were affected” in certain districts.
We received five million syringes on Thursday, December 23.This will allow us to conduct a vaccine drive over the next few weeks.Another 60 million are in the pipeline.
Nepal registered 827,271 Covid deaths and 11585 cases since the outbreak of the pandemic, which began in 2020.
The country reports new cases daily of 200 to 300 people, and new deaths in single-digit numbers.
Contrary to those difficult times, Nepal is able to supply adequate vaccines at the moment, with the government planning on vaccinating all of the country by the middle of next April.
According to the Health Ministry, there have been 39.2 Million doses of vaccines given to the nation as of Sunday.An additional 20,000,000 will be delivered by February 2019.
Due to insufficient refrigeration, the country requested that delayed shipment be made.
Dahal stated that they have approximately 9 million doses of vaccines in stock and their storage facilities are already full.
Officials believe that the current storage space could hold additional 20 million vaccinations.
He said, “So we asked the companies that are willing to supply additional vaccines to Nepal to postpone the shipment until February.”
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