Kathmandu, June 8 -- When Nepal's new Health Minister Sher Bahadur Tamang went to Kathmandu Airport on Tuesday morning to receive another international consignment of medical assistance, he was the third Health Minister since the pandemic began.

Tamang was brought into the Cabinet by Prime Minister K P Oli last week in a reshuffle in which he inducted 12 ministers from the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP), removed prominent ministers from his own UML, and kept seven portfolios for himself for now.

Tamang had earlier sided with the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-Madhav Kumar Nepal faction of the Nepal Communist Party, but defected to the Oli side after the Supreme Court disbanded the party earlier this year.

He succeeded Hiradyesh Tripathi, who was for...