A consignment of COVID-19 vaccines called AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine, manufactured locally by Serum Institute of India has arrived in Nepal.
Air India’s flight AI 213 carrying the consignment of vaccines dispatched from India landed at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, at 11:57 am today, a staffer at the airport's International Terminal building informed NepalNews.com.
India has provided Nepal with one million doses of the vaccines under grant assistance.
Official Spokesperson at Ministry of External Affairs, India, Anurag Srivastava tweeted this morning, “Consignment of Made in India Covid vaccines takes off for Nepal! With hashtag #NeighbourhoodFirst”. The medicines were seen loading in the Airbus A321 of Air India in the image posted on Twitter.
Ambassador of India to Nepal Vinay Mohan Kwatra on Wednesday made announcement at a joint press conference held with Nepal’s Minister of Health and Population Hridayesh Tripathi at the Ministry of Health and Population that India was providing the COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal as a priority. Kwatra said India’s cooperation with Nepal to fight the COVID-19 pandemic started from the very first day with the initial grant assistance of PPEs, testing kits, and ventilators.
The Indian Ambassador had said that Nepal would be among the first few countries to receive these vaccines as gifts from the government and people of India to the government and people of Nepal.
He said India’s COVID cooperation effort was for the benefit of ‘our people and global community, particularly the neighbours’.