Nepal, India to cooperate in fight against COVID, vaccine supplies

KATHMANDU: Nepal and India have agreed to continue the cooperation to fight the COVID-19 pandemic during a telephonic conversation between the foreign ministers of both the countries. The foreign ministers of Nepal and India held a telephonic conversation on Friday afternoon to discuss cooperation in the fight against the pandemic, including supply of vaccines, among other matters.

Nepal Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali called his Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar and discussed about COVID cooperation and vaccine supplies, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nepal. During the meeting, Gyawali requested Jaishankar to make available one million COVID vaccine doses that Nepal had procured from the Serum Institute from India. The Serum Institute has not supplied half of the two million doses for which Nepal had placed an order by paying 80 per cent of the total cost.

The conversation between Gyawali and Jainshankar took place at a time when both Nepal and India are witnessing a massive surge in the number of COVID-19 cases, with the latter reporting a massive spike in daily caseload.

On Friday, Nepal reported 288 new COVID cases, while India reported more than 1.3 lakh cases.

Both ministers also discussed tightening the Nepal-India border in order to check the influx of people coming into the Himalayan nation from India. Nepal and India share long, open borders and people from both sides frequently cross the transit points. (IANS)

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