Covid 19 vaccination India: After Covishield, boxes of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin reach 11 cities

Covid 19 vaccination India: The first batch of India’s indigenous Covid vaccine Covaxin of Bharat Biotech has reached 11 cities across India including Delhi, Bengaluru, and Chennai. This distribution of Covaxin began a day after Serum Institute of India’s version of Oxford Covid-19 vaccine Covishield was transported to several locations across India. Along with Covishield, Covaxin will be part of India’s massive Covid vaccination drive.

The first batch of Covaxin was transported from Hyderabad and flown to Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh’s Gannavaram, Haryana’s Kurukshetra, Patna, Guwahati, Jaipur, Pune, Bhubaneswar, and Lucknow.

From Hyderabad, the first batch of Covaxin reached Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on Wednesday morning. Three boxes of Covaxin vaccine reached Delhi airport on an Air India flight. Subsequently, four boxes of Covaxin were transported through Vistara flight. Delhi International Airport Ltd has disclosed three boxes that came via Air India flight were meant for Haryana’s Kurukshetra and the four boxes on the Vistara flights were for Delhi.

In Delhi, 20,000 doses of Bharat Biotech have reached Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality hospital (RGSSH). There are four boxes and each one contains 250 vials. Each vial has 20 doses of Covaxin of 10 ml, RGSSH spokesperson Dr Chhavi Gupta says adding that the necessary procedure of transportation of the Covaxin vaccines has commenced and it would reach the respective centres, as per an Indian Express report.

Boxes of Covaxin reached Vijayawada, Pune, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, and Patna through IndiGo. Spicejet transported three boxes of Covaxin to Bengaluru. Three boxes of Covaxin are reaching Delhi and these will be taken to Lucknow.

While the central government is yet to disclose the exact break-up of the number of Covishield and Covaxin Covid vaccines kept for states and Union Territories, the Union Ministry of Health said that the initial procurement of 1.65 crore doses of Covaxin and Covishield were allocated to all states and UTs.

Covaxin price

Earlier, the Central government had stated that a purchase agreement has been done with Bharat biotech for procurement of 55 lakh doses of Covaxin. The central government has said that out of the total the cost of 38.5 lakh doses of Covaxin stood at Rs 295 per dose, excluding taxes. However, Bharat Biotech is providing 16.5 lakh doses of Covaxin free of cost to the Government of India. This will lead to the cost of one dose of Covaxin to Rs 206.