The United Nations country office in Nepal has clarified that it has no plans of vaccinating all the staffers as reported in the media.
The office revealed so with a series of tweets Sunday evening following news reports that UN staffers along with those of diplomatic missions and journalists will be inoculated from Monday.
The UN has thanked the government for prioritizing UN staffers and dependants for vaccination implementing the global prioritization approach but clarified that only those staffers who fall in the priority population categories will be inoculated.
"However, for implementation, the UN will follow the government's prioritization plan to the letter and will be vaccinated as per the population categories that we fall within," one of the tweets quotes United Nations Resident Coordinator in Nepal Sara Beysolow Nyanti as saying.
The UN has revealed that it has been working with the government to implement the global prioritization approach which has frontline and health workers as the first category to be vaccinated.
It has thanked the government for implementing the UN Secretary General's guidance to have all people within the borders of the country including all foreigners, refugees, migrants, undocumented persons and others included in the national prioritization plan. "We have been included and for this we congratulate the government. Not all governments have abided by this call by the Secretary General," another of the tweets quotes Nyanti as adding.
Chief of the vaccination section under the Department of Health Services Dr Jhalak Sharma Gautam earlier told Setopati that preparations are on to inoculate almost 19,000 staffers of the United Nations and diplomatic missions and journalists ahead of the older people violating its own criteria.
Four hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley have been designated for that purpose. Journalists can get the shots at the Civil Hospital, staffers of diplomatic missions at the Shahid Gangalal National Heart Center and Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH), and staffers of the United Nations at the Patan Hospital.
The decision to violate the criteria has been widely condemned on the social media.
