New Delhi
Nepal on Friday congratulated India on “the remarkable success” in production of Covishield and Covaxin vaccines against COVID-19 and requested for early provision of vaccines.

The request was made during the sixth Joint Commission meeting between the two countries here. The meeting was co-chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Foreign Minister of Nepal Pradeep Kumar Gyawali.

A Ministry of External Affairs release said the meeting noted the close cooperation between the two sides in combating COVID-19 pandemic in the region.

“Nepal congratulated India on the remarkable success in the production of Covishield and Covaxin vaccines in India and requested for early provision of vaccines to Nepal,” it said.

Kathmandu on Friday approved the emergency use of ‘Covishield’ vaccine, which is being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India .The decision was taken by the Department of Drug Administration . The country has reported 2,66,816 COVID-19 cases and 1,948 deaths due to the disease.

Covishield has been developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and is being manufactured by SII. Covaxin is an indigenous vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR.

India has given emergency use authorisation for Covishield and Covaxin. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said that India’s vaccine production and delivery capacity will be used to help all humanity in fighting COVID-19 crisis.