China will provide one million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine to Nepal, its ambassador has said, as authorities in the Himalayan country scramble to secure shots amid a surge in infections that has overwhelmed its rickety health system.

The announcement was made during a telephone conversation between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Nepali counterpart Bidya Devi Bhandari, China's ambassador Hou Yanqi said in a Twitter post.

In March, China provided 800,000 doses of the Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine to Nepal, which also received a million shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine as gift from India.