Image Source: economictimes.com
India starts shipping the covid vaccines to Indian cities
India has started the shipping of Covid-19 vaccines to multiple cities in India. This move came four days after the nationwide inoculation drive.
The first consignment left the Indian city of Pune on Tuesday. This consignment was developed by Serum Institute of India.
These consignments left in the temperature-controlled trucks to the city’s airport from where they were loaded into private air carriers so that they can be distributed in all over the country.
The shipping of vaccines has been termed as “momentous mission” by the civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
From Saturday onwards, India will start the huge undertaking of inoculating an estimated 20 millions of doctors, nurses and other front-line workers.
The effort is to then inoculate 270 million people, who are either of the age above 50 years or have a secondary health condition that raises their risk of being infected with Covid-19.
The first consignment contained the COVISHIELD vaccine made by the Serum Institute and developed by the Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
India’s drug regulator has also approved the homegrown vaccine for emergency, Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN. Medical groups and others have raised the concern about the drug being approved with little evidence of its effectiveness.