Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Jul 12:9:613402.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.613402. eCollection 2021.

Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of the First Wave From Nepal

Buddha Bahadur Basnet  1 , Kiran Bishwakarma  2 , Ramesh Raj Pant  3 , Santosh Dhakal  4 , Nashib Pandey  5 , Dhruba Gautam  6 , Archana Ghimire  2 , Til Bahadur Basnet  7
Affiliations
Review

Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of the First Wave From Nepal

Buddha Bahadur Basnet et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Unprecedented and unforeseen highly infectious Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a significant public health concern for most of the countries worldwide, including Nepal, and it is spreading rapidly. Undoubtedly, every nation has taken maximum initiative measures to break the transmission chain of the virus. This review presents a retrospective analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal, analyzing the actions taken by the Government of Nepal (GoN) to inform future decisions. Data used in this article were extracted from relevant reports and websites of the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) of Nepal and the WHO. As of January 22, 2021, the highest numbers of cases were reported in the megacity of the hilly region, Kathmandu district (population = 1,744,240), and Bagmati province. The cured and death rates of the disease among the tested population are ~98.00 and ~0.74%, respectively. Higher numbers of infected cases were observed in the age group 21-30, with an overall male to female death ratio of 2.33. With suggestions and recommendations from high-level coordination committees and experts, GoN has enacted several measures: promoting universal personal protection, physical distancing, localized lockdowns, travel restrictions, isolation, and selective quarantine. In addition, GoN formulated and distributed several guidelines/protocols for managing COVID-19 patients and vaccination programs. Despite robust preventive efforts by GoN, pandemic scenario in Nepal is, yet, to be controlled completely. This review could be helpful for the current and future effective outbreak preparedness, responses, and management of the pandemic situations and prepare necessary strategies, especially in countries with similar socio-cultural and economic status.

Keywords: COVID-19; Nepal; pandemic; preparedness; public health; response; spatial distribution.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

KB and AG were employed by Nepal Environment and Development Consultant Pvt. Ltd., in Kathmandu, Nepal. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of COVID-19 cases in Nepal up to January 22, 2021. (A) Province-wise distribution of total confirmed cases, recovery, and deaths; (B) Gender, age-wise distribution of COVID-19 confirmed cases; (C) Gender-age wise distribution of COVID-19 death cases; and (D) Age and gender-wise case fatality rate (CFR) in Nepal.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Age and gender-wise distribution fatal cases with single comorbidities. (A) Age-wise distribution of leading single comorbidities among COVID-19 deaths; (B) age-wise distribution of leading single comorbidities among COVID-19 deaths in Nepal in male; and (C) age-wise distribution of leading single comorbidities among COVID-19 deaths in Nepal in female.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Trend and spatial distribution of COVID-19 cases in Nepal. (A) Cumulative trend analysis of COVID-19 cases, (B) daily case wise trend analysis of COVID-19, (C–E) spatial distribution of infected, recovered, and death cases.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Jayaweera M, Perera H, Gunawardana B, Manatunge J. Transmission of COVID-19 virus by droplets and aerosols: a critical review on the unresolved dichotomy. Environ Res. (2020) 188:109819. 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109819 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zheng J. SARS-CoV-2: an emerging coronavirus that causes a global threat. Int J Biol Sci. (2020) 16:1678–85. 10.7150/ijbs.45053 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Islam N, Sharp SJ, Chowell G. Physical distancing interventions and incidence of coronavirus disease 2019: natural experiment in 149 countries. BMJ. (2020) 370:27–43. 10.1136/bmj.m2743 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gupta A, Singla M, Bhatia H, Sharma V. Lockdown-the only solution to defeat COVID-19. Int J Diabetes Dev Ctries. (2020) 6:1–2. 10.1007/s13410-020-00826-3 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lu G, Razum O, Jahn A, Zhang Y, Sutton B, Sridhar D, et al. . COVID-19 in Germany and China: mitigation versus elimination strategy. Glob. Health Action. (2021). 14:1875601. 10.1080/16549716.2021.1875601 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types