Tale of trans-Himalayan district: vaccine being transported via tractor

KATHMANDU: JULY 22 – Vaccine supply has been a major issue in Mustang, a trans-Himalayan area. Because regular vehicular mobility was halted due to a disaster-caused roadblock, a tractor was deployed to convey the anti-COVID vaccine.

The district’s Lomanthang rural municipality made the vaccine supply arrangement in a tractor on July 13 and administered the second dosage to the district’s older inhabitants.

The swollen Panda rivulet hampered vaccination transportation from Jomsom’s district headquarters. After an ambulance carrying vaccines was disrupted in the Manda rivulet near Kagbeni, the rural municipality’s chief administrative officer Nawaraj Bhandari reported that a tractor was employed instead to convey the vaccines.

“The ambulance was unable to cross the overflowing torrent,” Bhandari explained, adding that vaccination transportation was delayed for two days until a tractor was utilised to safely cross the raging watercourse.

Tenzing Norbu Gurung, the health coordinator of the Lomanthang rural municipality, personally delivered the immunizations to the local level in a tractor.

“Upper Mustang is free of problems. However, rivulets pouring through Kagbeni cause traffic issues “Bhandari went on to say.

“We made a variety of alternative arrangements to transfer the vaccines to the remote municipality,” he added.

Health workers have previously used logs to get immunizations across a flood-fed watercourse in Mustang. Mustang blues were discovered in the shipment of vaccines in a media article that went viral.

The Pokhara-based Health Directorate had made a social media post revealing the supply of vaccines by Mustang health workers via tractor.

At a time when the vaccine campaign is gaining traction across the country, the trans-Himalayan district has encountered a storey of inconvenient transportation. The district’s inoculation has been delayed due to transportation issues, at a time when the coronavirus has already taken a toll on human life.