Kathmandu, May 17 -- UNICEF has made an urgent appeal ahead of a G7 summit next month to ask developed countries to release some of their vaccine stockpiles to fight the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the Subcontinent.

UNICEF with WHO are sponsors of the COVAX Facility that had promised to procure vaccines for developing countries so that they could inoculate at least 20% of their populations. Nepal has only received 348,000 out of the promised 2.248 million doses in March.

By the end of this week, the global Covid vaccine equity scheme will have been able to deliver only 65 million of the 170 million doses it was supposed to ship out by now. By the time G7 leaders gather in the UK next month, and asa deadly new surge dev...