New Delhi:
The initially consignment containing vials of Covishield vaccines left Serum Institute of India for Pune airport early this morning, 4 days ahead of the nationwide inoculation drive against COVID-19.
Amid tight safety, 3 temperature-controlled trucks rolled out of the Serum Institute gates shortly ahead of 5 am and left for Pune airport, from exactly where the vaccines will be flown across India. The trucks carried 478 boxes of the vaccines, every single box weighing 32 kg, news agency PTI reported quoting an unnamed official. A ”puja” was performed ahead of the cars left the facility.
From the airport, the vaccines will be dispatched to 13 areas across the nation. “The first flight will leave for Delhi from Pune airport,” Sandip Bhosale, SB Logistics, the logistics group which is handling air transport of Covishield vaccine from Pune International Airport was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The vaccines will be flown from Pune in eight industrial flights, which includes two cargo flights, according to PTI. The initially cargo flight will cover Hyderabad, Vijayawada, and Bhubaneswar and the second cargo flight will go to Kolkata and Guwahati, PTI reported quoting a supply.
The consignment for Mumbai will leave by road.
The government plans to buy a total of 5.60 crore doses of Serum Institute’s Covishield vaccine by April 2021, at ₹ 200 per dose. While 1.10 crore doses of Covishield had been bought on Monday, there is a “commitment” to buy yet another 4.50 crore doses by April 2021.
The Hindustan Lifecare Limited or HLL, a Central enterprise, is the agency which will purchase the vaccines from each Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech.
Two vaccines — the Covishield created by the Oxford University and pharma main AstraZeneca and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin — received emergency use approval from the Drug Controller of India earlier this month. Both are two-dose vaccines, which will have to be administered at a 28-day gap.
The rollout of the vaccines has been scheduled for January 16. The government has stated that 30 crore folks – beginning with overall health workers and frontline workers like the police, civil defence personnel and sanitation workers – will be administered the vaccine in the initially phase.
After them, the other vulnerable group, folks who are more than the age of 50 years and these who endure from co-morbidities which includes diabetes and hypertension, will also be administered the vaccine.
With inputs from PTI