People don't have to stand in queue for vaccines: Minister Khatiwada

'People don't have to stand in the queue to get COVID vaccines,' said Minister for Health and Population, Birodh Khatiwada.

During a joint visit and inspection with US Assistant Secretary of State Donald Luis at the Maharajgunj-based Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital about the Pfizer vaccination campaign today, Khatiwada said that the general public can go to any vaccination center as there is no shortage of vaccines.

Now, as per the minister, general citizens can get the vaccine from their nearest accessible vaccination center. The vaccination has been managed in Bir hospital, Teaching hospital, Patan hospital, Army hospital, and Nepal Police hospital for general citizens with 24 hours service.

The ministry has planned to manage the vaccines for people in the district anytime, added Khatiwada. Pfizer will be given to people above 12 years and those who are diagnosed with chronic disease in the first phase to reduce the effect of the vaccination, Khatiwada informed. We started to inoculate the Pfizer vaccine to chronic patients to train the manpower to see the impact of the vaccine, Khatiwada further explained.

According to Khatiwada, the vaccines will be inoculated to the 12 to 18 years age group after one month. The govt is preparing to procure the 6 million more doses of Pfizer vaccines which is in the final phase. The COVID vaccines will be reached to 100 percent of the population. Health workers will be provided with risk allowance who worked in the time of the pandemic, said Khatiwada. For that, the ministry has asked the money from Finance Ministry.

Similarly, Secretary of Ministry of Health and Population, Roshan Pokharel, US Ambassador to Nepal, Randy Berry were present at the occasion. The first phase of the Pfizer vaccination campaign started on November 14 and will end on November 20 from 24 hospitals across the nation. Nepal had received 100,620 doses of Pfizer vaccines from the US government through the COVAX facility, an international vaccine sharing scheme backed by United Nations.