KATHMANDU, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Nepal's drug regulator has approved a COVID-19 vaccine developed by India's Bharat Biotech International Limited for emergency use, the third vaccine to get such approval in Nepal.

By issuing a notice on Friday, the Department of Drug Administration, the drug regulator, said that conditional permission has been granted for emergency use authorization for Whole-Virion Inactivated Sars CoV-2 Vaccine (COVAXIN) manufactured by Bharat Biotech International Limited against COVID-19 in Nepal.

The Nepali drug regulator had earlier granted approval to China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, and the Covishield vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.

"After the Indian company submitted all the necessary documents that we had sought, we granted permission to COVAXIN for emergency use in Nepal," Santosh K.C, information officer at the department told Xinhua on Saturday.

The South Asian country had started the vaccination drive on Jan. 27. "So far, we have inoculated first doses of COVID-19 vaccines to 1.67 million people in two phases," Shyam Raj Upreti, coordinator of the COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee told Xinhua on Saturday.

In the first phase, health workers, security personnel, people involved in waste management, journalists and some officials were inoculated with the vaccines. In the second phase, people aged 65 years and above were vaccinated. Enditem

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