After the government gave emergency use approval to two vaccines: the Covishield developed by Oxford & AstraZeneca and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, the Serum Institute of India (SII) sends out Covid-19 vaccine, Covishield amidst tight security to 13 cities, four days prior to the mass inoculation drive in India.
Covishield is taken in three temperature controlled trucks. Carrying 478 boxes and each box weighing 32 kg, the trucks left from SII premises at around 5 am for the Pune airport.
In a tweet, the Pune airport writes, "Ready get set go! Stand by India! The vaccine to kill the disease is being loaded into the aircraft for distribution all over the country now."
Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted that,
"Civil aviation sector launches yet another momentous mission."
"Today, Air India, SpiceJet and IndiGo Airlines will operate nine flights from Pune with 56.5 lakh doses to Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Shillong, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Bengaluru, Lucknow and Chandigarh," he tweeted.
The first two flights operated by GoAir and SpiceJet took off with the vaccines to Delhi and Chennai.
One of the Twitter users tweeted, "Congratulations to all the ground staff and members of @aaipunairport this is indeed a historic moment. Your tweets exemplifies India's strive towards 'Atamanirbhar Bharat' in the global fight against #Covid-19."
PTI also reported that vaccines are also being taken out in two cargo flights to Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Kolkata and Guwahati. However, the consignment for Mumbai will leave by road.
According to a report published in the NDTV website, the government plans to buy total 5.60 crore doses of Covishield while it has ordered 1.01 crore doses at Rs 200 per dose. The Hindustan Lifecare Limited (HLL) will buy the vaccines from SII and Bharat Biotech.
Both Covishield and Covaxin are two dose vaccines that will be administered at a 28 days gap. The government in its report has said that 30 Crore people will be administered the vaccine in the first go.