Even when the third wave of corona started, the Chepang community, a minority community, refused to be vaccinated. It has been found that the Chepang community living in the district is not interested in vaccination. The Chepang community resides in six of the seven municipalities in the district.
Chepang resides in Icchakamana village municipality and Kalika, Rapti, Khairhani, Madi municipality, and Bharatpur metropolis of the district. According to the census of 2068 BS, 28 thousand 989 Chepangs live in these municipalities. Of them, 6,327 or 21.82 percent Chepangs have been vaccinated against corona so far. Of the seven municipalities in the district, 2,700 Chepangs have been vaccinated in Rapti.
According to Suresh Neupane, health chief of Rapti municipality, the Chepang community has a majority in wards 10, 11, 12, and 13. Ninety percent of the Chepang community live in those wards and only 8,000 people above 18 years of age need to be vaccinated. He said that the number of people getting vaccinated may have decreased due to the practice of marrying at an early age in the Chepang community. “It depends on the outcome of the vaccination of children under the age of 18,” he said. He also added, “It is customary in this community to get married at an early age. Let’s see what kind of participation there is in vaccinating people under 18 years of age.”
Three thousand 89 Chepang communities have been vaccinated in Kalika Municipality. The Chepang community resides in wards 9, 10, and 11 of this municipality. Chief of the health branch of the municipality, Deepak Bhandari, said that they have not even been able to reach the hilly areas and the centers far away from the vaccination centers. According to Bhandari, the Chepang community at the local level has been talking about why vaccination is needed. He said, “People living in hilly areas have been refusing to get vaccinated saying they have nowhere to go.”
Similarly, the Chepang community lives in all the wards of the Icchakamana village municipality especially in wards 1, 2 and 6 . Two thousand 350 people from those areas have been vaccinated against corona. Health branch chief Basudev Sapkota informed that more than 18,000 people have been vaccinated in the municipality. According to Sapkota, the number will increase with age. The number has decreased due to the remote settlement of the Chepang community and the lack of access to the vaccination center from that area.
