Pune: First flight with Covishield vaccines leaves for Delhi

A decisive phase in India's fightagainst coronavirus began in the wee hours on Tuesday as thefirst consignment of Covishield vaccines left for Delhi, fourdays ahead of the nationwide inoculation drive launch.

A SpiceJet flight carrying the vaccines left for thenational capital around 8 am, three hours after three truckswith the maiden consignment of the vaccines rolled out of theSerum Institute of India facility, 15 km from the airport.

''Ready get set go! Stand by India! The vaccine to killthe disease is being loaded into the aircraft for distributionall over the country now,'' Pune airport tweeted.

Three temperature-controlled trucks rolled out of theSerum Institute gates shortly before 5 am and left for Puneairport, from where the vaccines will be flown across India.

The trucks carried 478 boxes of the vaccines, eachbox weighing 32 kg, a source involved in the vaccine transportarrangements told PTI.

A 'puja' was performed before the vehicles left thefacility.

Besides Delhi, the vaccines will be dispatched to 12other locations across the country in seven more flights by 10am on Tuesday, the source said.

The locations include Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata,Chennai, Bengaluru, Karnal, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Guwahati,Lucknow, Chandigarh and Bhubaneswar.

The flights include two cargo flights, the sourcesaid. The first cargo flight will cover Hyderabad, Vijayawada,and Bhubaneswar and the second cargo flight will go to Kolkataand Guwahati, he added.

The consignment for Mumbai will leave by road. Trucksbelonging to Kool-ex Cold Chain Ltd are being used to ferrythe vaccine stocks from Serum Institute.

A consignment will be flown to to Ahmedabad.

On Monday, Gujarat deputy chief minister Nitin Pateltweeted that his state will receive the first consignment ofcoronavirus vaccine on Tuesday at 10.45 am at the SardarVallabhbhai Patel Airport in Ahmedabad.

The Central government on Monday placed firm orders inadvanced commitments for over six crore doses of vaccinesfrom Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech for inoculating threecrore healthcare and frontline workers in the first phase ofthe nationwide vaccination drive beginning January 16.

Interacting with state chief ministers on Monday,Prime Minister Narendra Modi underscored the enormity of whathe called as the world's biggest vaccination exercise, sayingover 30 crore citizens will get the jabs in the next fewmonths in India against only 2.5 crore people vaccinated sofar in over 50 countries in around a month.