How an Outbreak of COVID-19 Circulated Widely in Nepal: A Chronological Analysis of the National Response to an Unprecedented Pandemic

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first COVID-19 case was reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. The first COVID-19 case in Nepal was reported in January 2020 in a Nepalese man who had returned from Wuhan to Nepal. This study aims to evaluate the government of Nepal’s (GoN) response to the COVID-19 pandemic and explore ways to prevent COVID-19 and other pandemic diseases in the future. As of May 2022, a total of 979,140 cases and 11,951 deaths associated with COVID-19 have been reported in Nepal. To prevent the spread of the virus, the GoN initiated various preventive and control measures, including lockdown strategies. The effects of COVID-19 are expected to persist for many years; the best strategies a resource-limited country such as Nepal can implement to control pandemic diseases such as COVID-19 in the pre-vaccine stage are to increase testing, tracing, and isolation capacity.