Kathmandu, Jul 12 (IANS): Nepal on Monday received 1.5 million doses of the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) Covid-19 vaccines from the US.

The US Ambassador to Nepal, Randy Berry handed over the vaccine package to Nepal's Health Minister Krishna Gopal Shrestha at the Tribhuvan International Airport here earlier in the day.

"This is a gift from American people, this to protect the lives of 1.5 million people," Berry said.

"We are not getting any concessions behind donating these vaccines, there is no interest attached and this is purely a humanitarian action."

Nepal had earlier received 1.8 million Covid vaccines from China and 1.1 million from India under the grant assistance.

Similarly, 348,000 vaccine doses was also donated under the COVAX initiative to Nepal in April.

On July 9, the US had announced that it was donating 1.5 million doses of the J&J vaccines to Nepal and 500,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine to Bhutan.

Earlier, President Bidya Bhandari had written a letter to her American counterpart Joe Biden urging the latter to extend help in providing the Covid vaccines.

Experts have said that one dose of the J&J vaccine will suffice against Covid-19, while all other vaccines require two doses.

The Health Ministry is making preparations to administer 1.5 million J&J jabs to tcitizens on a priority basis.

On July 8, 800,000 doses of Vero Cell arrived in Nepal from China.

With this, Nepal has received a total of 5,048,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines so far, according to the Ministry of Health and Population.