Govt begins administering additional COVID-19 doses to elderly

KATHMANDU, December 16: The government has begun administering additional doses of COVID-19 vaccine to people older than 60 years old.

The National COVID-19 Vaccination Advisory Committee has already recommended the government to administer the additional doses to elderly, according to Chairman of the committee, Dr Ramesh Kanta Adhikari.

Those elederly who had received two shots of Verocell vaccine will receive an additional dose to boost their immunity.

 Likewise, the shots will also be administered to people with compromised immunity who have already received both shots of the vaccine, according to Sagar Dahal, chief of the Family Welfare Division.

“The government has already begun administering the additional doses of COVID-19 vaccines from some of the vaccination centers in the Kathmandu Valley,” Dahal added.

Similarly, the government has decided to inoculate the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to children aged between 12 to 17 from December 19 to 29. The vaccination will be administered in schools in 57 districts across the country.

Also, the government will soon begin administering booster doses of COVID-19 to the public once the 50 percent of total eligible population receives at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine. 

So far, 47 percent of the total eligible population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 vaccine in the country.

To maintain vaccine equality, the World Health Organization has prohibited the inoculation of booster doses before administering COVID-19 vaccine to at least 50 percent of the total eligible population.

So far, Nepal has administered COVID-19 vaccine to as many as 20,995,536 people. Of them, 19,629,621 have received their first shots while 93,65,915 have received both shots, according to the Ministry of Health and Population.