Covaxin shipped to 11 cities in India- Bharat Biotech

Hyderabad, Jan 13 (PTI): Bharat Biotech said on Wednesdaythat it has successfully air-shipped its COVID-19 vaccineCovaxin to 11 cities in India in the early hours and that ithas donated 16.5 lakh doses to the centre.

The company also expressed its deepest gratitude to thenation, all clinical trial volunteers and its partners formaking this a successful and milestone public-privatepartnership for the development of India's first COVID19-vaccine, a press release said.

After having received the government purchase order for55 lakh doses, Bharat Biotech shipped the first batch ofvaccines (each vial containing 20 doses) to Gannavaram(Vijayawada), Guwahati, Patna, Delhi, Kurukshetra, Bangalore,Pune, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Chennai and Lucknow.

Covaxin is a highly purified and inactivated two-doseSARS-CoV-2 vaccine, manufactured in a Vero cell manufacturingplatform with an excellent safety track record of more than300 million doses, the release said.

It is India's totally indigenous COVID-19 vaccine,developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of MedicalResearch and National Institute of Virology.

The inactivated vaccine is developed and manufactured inBharat Biotech's BSL-3 (Bio-Safety Level 3) biocontainmentfacility, one of its kind in the world.