Kathmandu, Oct. 25 -- The first 100,620 doses of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine under the global COVAX initiative arrived in Kathmandu on Monday, even asthe country's rate for fully vaccinatedpopulation nears 23%.

The BioNTech doses, however, will not be administered to children above age 12 as previously expected, but to cancer and kidney patients undergoing treatment in hospitals across the country.

The consignment was taken from the airport directly to the ultra-cold storage facility of the Department of Health in Teku. Pfizer vaccines have to be stored at -70o Celsius, even while most hospitals in Kathmandu only have standard refrigeration facilities and the government is yet to build required infrastructure across the country to store t...