Nepal issued climbing permits to more than 700 climbers for 16 Himalayan peaks - 408 to Mount Everest.
Kathmandu:
Nepal is so short of oxygen canisters that it has asked climbers on Mount Everest to bring back their empties instead of abandoning them on mountain slopes, an official said on Monday, as it struggles with a second wave of the coronavirus.
The country issued climbing permits to more than 700 climbers for 16 Himalayan peaks - 408 to Mount Everest - for the April-May climbing season in a bid to get the mountaineering industry and tourism back up and running.
The Nepal Mountaineering Association has asked the climbers to help Nepal deal with a surge in COVID-19 cases that has brought the country s fragile healthcare system to breaking point, as it has in neighbouring India where deaths held close to record highs on Monday.
FOCUS: Nepal appeals for help as deadly coronavirus crisis unfolds
As the international community focuses on the humanitarian crisis in India, a deadly coronavirus crisis is also unfolding in neighboring Nepal, leaving the small Himalayan nation in a battle it is ill-prepared to fight, public health experts say.
Nepal was among the first in Asia to start an inoculation drive, launching the effort in January, but it has been suspended since April as vaccines stopped coming from India, where the health system has collapsed under the burden of the pandemic.
The Indian government has temporarily banned vaccine exports to prioritize vaccinating its own population in a frantic effort to contain the rapid spread of the virus in a nation of over 1.3 billion people.
Kathmandu: Nepal will use the vaccine given by China against the coronavirus. The second phase of the corona vaccination campaign will begin in N..|News Track
KATHMANDU: Nepal approved on Thursday the emergency use of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by an affiliate of Chinas Sinopharm , a government official said, the second vaccine cleared after AstraZenecas product, reports Reuters. The move paves the way for China to donate 500,000