Resumption of India's COVAX vaccine supply delayed by Nepal - sources

KATHMANDU, Nov 22 (Reuters) - The resumption of India
supplying COVID-19 vaccines to the global COVAX vaccine-sharing
platform after eight months was delayed on Monday when Nepal
requested a postponement, two sources told Reuters.

The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest
vaccine maker, was scheduled to ship Covishield doses through
COVAX to Nepal on Monday, but the country now wants them only
around Nov. 29, said one of the sources, a Nepal health ministry
official.

He declined to explain the reasons for the delay. Neither
source wanted to be named ahead of vaccine delivery, expected to
be in hundreds of thousands of doses.

A Nepal health ministry spokesperson had no immediate
comment. SII, whose licensed version of the AstraZeneca
vaccine is known as Covishield, did not respond to a request for
comment.

SII last supplied to COVAX in the middle of April before
India stopped all vaccine exports to meet its own demand as
infections soared. The company has a deal to sell hundreds of
millions of vaccines doses to COVAX, which distributes shots to
low and medium-income countries.

Before the ban, SII sent a total of about 20 million
Covishield doses to various countries through COVAX and many
more doses as part of the Indian government's vaccine grants
programme.

India last month sent around 4 million vaccine doses
bilaterally to its friends and neighbours after domestic output
surged. SII has nearly quadrupled Covishield production to up to
240 million doses a month from its April levels.
(Reporting by Gopal Sharma in Kathmandu and Krishna N. Das in
New Delhi, editing by Ed Osmond)