First Batch of Covid-19 Vaccine Dispatched by Air and Road to 13 Cities by Serum Institute

Covid vaccine first stock dispatched: A ray of hope against covid-19 is here and the country is looking forward to a covid-free era!

Tuesday, 12th January 2021

The much-awaited vaccination against the deadly coronavirus has arrived at last and this may signal the start of a new era altogether. The Serum Institute has dispatched its first consignment of Covishield, its coronavirus vaccine to various cities in the country on Tuesday morning. Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, and 9 other Indian cities are to receive more than 56 lakh doses that were shipped by air, while Mumbai will receive the consignment via road transport.

The first phase of the vaccination drive will commence in India on January 16.

The consignment was charged with Kool-ex Cold Chain Limited who provided trucks for the carriage of the vaccine from the Pune-based Institute.

Early on Tuesday morning, three temperature regulated trucks picked up the consignments from the Serum Institute and left for Pune airport. They carried a total of 478 boxes of vaccines. Once at the airport, they were loaded on to private domestic air carriers.

SpiceJet’s SG8937 departed for Delhi with 34 boxes that weighed 1,088 kg. Soon after that, GoAir’s flight G8-904 departed with its consignment for Chennai.

As Twitter posts by the Pune airport officials read, “Ready get set go” and “Stand by India! The vaccine to kill the disease is being loaded into the aircraft for distribution all over the country now”.

As per the Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, “Air India, SpiceJet, GoAir & IndiGo will operate nine flights from Pune with 56.5 lakh doses to Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Shillong, Ahmadabad, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Bengaluru, Lucknow & Chandigarh”.

The vaccination drive involves a plan by the Central government to inoculate 30 crore people in phase one. This entails a requirement of 60 crore doses on the vaccine for covid-19 infection.

As per the drug regulator in India, two vaccines had received approval for emergency use in the country on January 3. These were Covishield from the Serum Institute of India, the local maker of the vaccine developed by Oxford University, and pharmaceuticals company AstraZeneca and Covaxin that is India’s indigenous vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the India Council of Medical Research.

The News Talkie Bureau

Source

Indian Express