Lucknow: With less than a week left before India starts its nationwide inoculation drive, batches of coronavirus vaccine are being shipped to multiple parts across the country. As many as 3 crore healthcare and frontline workers will be the first in line to receive the shot. Pune’s Serum Institute of India and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech received the Drug Controller General of India’s approval on January 3 for “restricted” use of their Covid-19 vaccines in an “emergency” situation.
Lucknow: With less than a week left before India starts its nationwide inoculation drive, batches of coronavirus vaccine are being shipped to multiple parts across the country. As many as 3 crore healthcare and frontline workers will be the first in line to receive the shot. Pune’s Serum Institute of India and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech received the Drug Controller General of India’s approval on January 3 for “restricted” use of their Covid-19 vaccines in an “emergency” situation.
After Serum Institute’s maiden consignment of Covishield vaccines took off for Delhi from Pune on Tuesday, Bharat Biotech also dispatched the first batches of Covaxin, its two-dose Covid-19 vaccine, to 11 cities across India. The Hyderabad firm said it had successfully shipped the first batch of the vaccines to Ganavaram, Guwahati, Patna, Delhi, Kurukshetra, Bangalore, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Chennai, and Lucknow.
As of Tuesday, 54.72 lakh doses of the two vaccines cleared for use by the national regulator had reached vaccine stores across the country, the government said. With limited doses of Covid-19 vaccines available initially, the Centre said states will not have the option to choose which vaccine to administer to its priority groups.
