By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Dec. 28: With 481 new cases of novel coronavirus confirmed on Sunday, the national COVID-19 tally has touched 258,181.
"In 3,828 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests done in the last 24 hours, 481 persons were found to have been infected with SARS-CoV-2," said Dr. Jageshwor Gautam, spokesperson of the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) in the regular press briefing today.
Currently, there are 6,493 active cases of COVID-19. Of them, 3,416 patients are receiving treatment in institutional isolation and 3,077 are in home isolation.
A total of 235 are admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and 53 are receiving treatment with ventilator support. A total of 369 persons, mostly those who had returned from abroad, are placed in quarantine.
Meanwhile, 731 COVID-19 patients receiving treatment in institutional isolation or staying in home isolation recovered from the infection in the last 24 hours. Nepal has now recorded 249,863 cases of recoveries and the recovery rate has reached 96.8 per cent.
Six people succumbed to the deadly virus in the last 24 hours and with this, the national COVID-19 related death toll has reached 1,825.
GAVI calls govt. to get prepared for vaccines
Stating that the COVID-19 vaccines would be made available to Nepal shortly, GAVI has called the Nepal government to stay prepared regarding storage, transportation of vaccines and other requirements as such.
Dr. Samir Kumar Adhikari, assistant spokesperson at the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), said that the government had been cooperating with GAVI to import the vaccines in Nepal.
"GAVI, COVAX, the global project to provide vaccines to developing countries, has continuously been informing the concerned states about the progress happening in manufacture and production of COVID-19 jabs," added Adhikari.
However, the exact date on which the vaccines would arrive in Nepal and the exact amount cannot be ascertained, he said. "The vaccines will arrive soon as the necessary preparations are being made."
Spokesperson Adhikari said that information had been received from GAVI that the vaccines would be made available within the first three months of 2021. COVAX has put forward a plan of providing 1.3 billion vials of vaccine to 92 nations.
It has been said that vaccines to be made available from COVAX need to be stored in temperature from 2 to 8 degree Celsius.
Cold chain storage in all seven provinces
Following GAVI's recommendation, the government

has started preparations to import the vaccines. In an investment worth Rs. 80 million, the government is constructing cold chain storage in all seven provinces.
Dr. Prakash Ghimire, a microbiologist who has been studying COVID-19 vaccines closely, said, "Nepal has been waiting for low cost vaccines which would be effective and safe to store in the cold chain storage."
Similarly, citing that the vaccines favourable for storage in Nepal had not come in the world market, Dr. Jhalak Gautam, chief of the Child Health and Immunisation Service Section, said that the procurement procedure had not kicked off yet. "However, the government is looking forward to bringing the vaccines shortly," said Dr. Gautam.
The immunisation section is preparing to use the cold chain storage of Tribhuwan International Airport (TIA) to store the COVID-19 vaccines. Likewise, all the government authorities have been striving to use the freezers available in health centers of all districts. "As other vaccines are being stored in Nepal from 2 to 8 degree Celsius, we are now striving to construct cold storages to store vaccines at up to -20 degree Celsius," said Dr. Sharma.
Nepal government has allocated Rs. 49 billion for procurement of vaccines against COVID-19.