States »SoutPosted at: May 17 2021 5:02PM Apollo Hospitals & Dr Reddy's Labs launch limited pilot program for Sputnik V Vaccine
Hyderabad, May 17 (UNI) Apollo Hospitals and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories on Monday announced the launch of a limited pilot program for the Sputnik V vaccine at Apollo Hospitals here as part of the soft launch in India.
The first phase of vaccination programme was launched in Hyderabad today and in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday at separate facilities at the Apollo Hospitals in these cities.
The vaccinations would follow the SOPs as recommended by the government including registration on CoWIN.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr K Hari Prasad, President – Hospitals Division, Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Limited said, “With the opening up of the vaccination program for the private sector, we have intensified our efforts to accelerate the rate of vaccination through opening vaccination centers across our hospital network and are also in discussions with corporates to undertake vaccination on their premises.
We are currently administering COVID vaccine at 60 locations across the country including Apollo Hospitals, Apollo Spectra hospitals and Apollo Clinics.
This pilot phase will allow Dr Reddy’s and Apollo to test the arrangements and cold chain logistics and prepare for the launch.
We are confident that with the Sputnik V vaccine, we will be able to make a significant contribution to ease availability and access to COVID vaccines to the community at large.”
Mr M V Ramana, CEO – Branded Markets (India & Emerging Markets), Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories said, “We are pleased to collaborate with Apollo Hospitals as part of our soft pilot launch of the Sputnik V vaccine in India.
We are working to scale up the pilot and take the vaccine to other cities, and in the upcoming months we hope to inoculate as many Indians as possible.”
The Sputnik V vaccines for the pilot program would be supplied by Dr Reddy’s from the first batch of 1,50,000 vaccine doses imported by them for the soft launch.
After Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, the pilot program will be extended to Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, and Pune, a Apollo Hospital release here said.
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