Serum Institute of India (SII) dispatched the first consignment of Covishield vaccine on early Tuesday morning.
Three trucks headed from SII premises towards Pune Airport at 5 am. The vaccines will be taken to other parts of the country using cargo planes. According to sources trucks carried 478 boxes of the vaccines, and the cargo will be dispatched by 10 am.
ANI reported that Sandip Bhosale, MD of SB Logistics, the company handling air transportation of the vaccine from Pune airport, said that eight flights would transport Covishield vaccine from Pune International Airport to 13 different locations today. The first flight will leave for Delhi airport. DCP (Zone 5) Pune, Namrata Patil said that the police made security arrangements for the transport of vaccines.
According to media reports, vaccines will be flown to Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata. Chennai, Bengaluru, Karnal, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Guwahati, Lucknow, Chandigarh and Bhubaneswar.
The central government has placed a purchase order with the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) for 11 million doses of Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, Covishield, at a cost of ₹210 per dose (including GST). Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday announced that the State governments would not have to pay for vaccinating crore healthcare and frontline workers.