How Bhutan managed to vaccinate most of its population

Bhutan has emerged as an unlikely COVID-19 vaccination success story. The kingdom situated high in the Himalayas has managed to administer over 454,000 shots in the past week, which is just over 85 % of the eligible adult population.

Hailing the vaccination drive as a “great success story for Bhutan,”  UNICEF’s Bhutan representative, Will Parks, said, “We really need a world in which the countries that have surplus vaccines really do donate to those countries that haven’t received (shots) so far.”

“And if there’s anything that I hope the world that can learn, is that a country like Bhutan with very few doctors, very few nurses but a really committed king and leadership in the government mobilising society — it’s not impossible to vaccinate the whole country,” he told AFP. 

India donated 550,000 AstraZeneca vaccines to Bhutan in early April for the first jabs. However, India soon halted exports following a massive surge in infections.

Faced with a growing time gap between first and second doses, Bhutan launched an appeal for donations, following which the United States donated half a million Moderna doses via Covax — the distributor backed by the World Health Organization and the Gavi vaccine alliance. In Mid-July, Denmark donated another 250,000 AstraZeneca shots

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Apart from this, the country is also expected to get 400,000 AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Sinopharm shots from Croatia, Bulgaria, China and several other countries. In the meantime, Bhutan has purchased 200,000 Pfizer doses that are expected to be delivered later this year.

Bhutan has reported just under 2,500 COVID-19 cases and two deaths so far. Bhutan’s rapid roll-out of COVID vaccines stands in contrast with other South Asian nations, which have also been hit by India’s suspension of vaccine exports.