The vaccine for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) reached the respective regional hubs on Tuesday ahead of the launch of nationwide vaccination on January 16.
As many as 5.6 million doses of Covishield, the vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), will be delivered across 13 cities today. SII’s chief executive officer (CEO) Adar Poonawalla said the first 100 million doses of Covishield is being provided to the government at 200 after which the price will be increased to 1000.
The first consignment of the vaccines rolled out of the Serum Institute of India facility in Pune early Tuesday and reached landed at Delhi airport at 10 am.
Here are the latest updates on the vaccine front:

  • Bharat Biotech, which has received Emergency Use Authorisation approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for its Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin, is set to dispatch it from the Rajv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad on Tuesday evening. Covaxin is indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Virology (NIV).
  • The first batch of Covishield vaccine vials reached Delhi’s central storage facility at Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital (RGSSH) Tuesday afternoon, news agency PTI reported. The Delhi Police had formed a “green corridor” from the airport to the hospital to safely transport the vials to the hospital. A special cold storage facility has been created at RGSSH to store the vaccine vials.
  • The vaccine consignment also reached Bengaluru from Serum Institute of India in Pune. Karnataka health and medical education minister Dr K Sudhakar had earlier said that the state will get 7.95 lakh vials of Covid-19 vaccine in the first consignment.
  • Vaccines consignments have also reached Gujarat, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for distribution to centres in cities and districts where the first phase of vaccination will takes place four days later.
  • Covid-19 vaccination drive will start on January 16. The government had on Monday placed orders in advanced commitments for over six crore doses of vaccines from SII and Bharat Biotech for inoculating three crore healthcare and frontline workers in the first phase.
  • A ‘puja’ was performed before the three temperature controlled trucks rolled out of Serum Institute gates shortly before 5 am and moved towards the Pune airport, about 15 km away, from where the vaccines were flown across India.
  • Covishield has been developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and manufactured by the SII.
  • Vaccines are being transported to Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Guwahati, Shillong, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Vijayawada, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Bengaluru, Lucknow and Chandigarh.