Bahraini prince hits snag trying to donate 2K coronavirus vaccine doses to Nepal

A Bahraini prince donated 2,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine to Nepal on his way to Mount Everest, but regulators in the country are say they’re not sure the doses can be legally distributed.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the unexpected gesture by Prince Sheikh Mohamed Hamad Mohamed al-Khalifa may be a violation of a Nepalese ban on drug imports, sparking an investigation by regulators into the breach of protocols.

“We have deployed a team of drug inspectors to investigate how the vaccines were brought into the country without any prior approval,” Bharat Bhattarai, director general of the Department of Drug Administration, told the Kathmandu Post. “We did not know that vaccines were being imported from Bahrain.”

The Bahraini government and the Nepalese trekking company that led the expedition reportedly said they received permission to import the vaccines from Nepal’s embassy in Bahrain, with the embassy apparently failing to notify officials in Kathmandu.

The matter was further complicated by at least two anonymous officials at the Nepali Health Ministry telling the Kathmandu Post that the vaccines were Chinese and developed by Sinovac Biotech. Nepal has not granted emergency use authorization for that vaccine.

Nepal’s embassy in Bahrain, however, reportedly said the prince donated Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, which is already being administered in Nepal.

The Hill has reached out to Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population for comment.

Nepal has recorded 275,625 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and 3,015 deaths, according to Reuters. The country has administered at least 402,264 doses of coronavirus vaccines, which Reuters said, assuming every person needs two doses, is 0.7 percent of the country’s population.