March 1: The government amended the Drugs Act 2035 three months ago to allow the private sector to import the Covid-19 vaccine. However, the private sector has not shown any interest to import the vaccine. The government had amended the law through an ordinance in the first week of November last year to pave the way for private companies to register with the Department of Drug Administration and import vaccines.
The authorised distributor of the Indian company Serum Institute for Nepal was registered with the Department after the government allowed import of Covid-19 vaccine. The Serum Institute is producing Covishield vaccines developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca.
The Ministry of Health and Population introduced the same vaccine in Nepal after receiving grant from the Indian government.

The Department of Drug Administration informed that despite the registration, Serum Institute’s distributor for Nepal of Hukam Distributors and Logistics Pvt Pvt Ltd has not placed any order and initiated any process for importing the vaccine. Similarly, the Chinese company SynoPharm was registered with the department after China decided to provide vaccines to Nepal, on a grant basis.
The company was registered with the department on the initiative of the Chinese embassy. Besides, there are no other companies registered with the department. "Two companies, one private and the other Chinese, have been registered," informed Santosh KC, information officer of the department.

Nepal received one million doses of vaccine on January 21 as grant from the Government of India. Similarly, the country bought a million doses of vaccine on February 21.
Nepal so far has vaccinated health workers, security personnel, staff, journalists, and staff of diplomatic missions at the forefront of the campaign against Covid-19 and is preparing to vaccinate the general public from March 7.
Pawan Acharya, general secretary of the Association of Pharmaceutical Importers, informed that the private sector was ready to import the vaccine but did not do it due to the lack of demand for vaccines in Nepal. He added that since the government is currently distributing the vaccines, there has been no demand for vaccines in Nepal.
"The private sector is ready to bring the vaccine, but we are not ready to take the risk as it requires huge investment and there is no demand in the country," he informed.
He further added that the private sector will move ahead with the process of bringing vaccines if the demand for vaccines goes up.