NEW DELHI: Serum Institute of India has sent their first batch of anti-novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine to thirteen cities.
Vehicles with the vaccine, Covishield, left Pune this morning, four days ahead of the nationwide inoculation drive against COVID-19.
Three temperature-controlled trucks rolled out of the Serum Institute gates with their precious cargo with 478 boxes of the vaccines, each box weighing 32 kg.
The Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that the vaccines will be flown in nine commercial flights.
These doses will be taken to cities such as Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Shillong, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Bengaluru, Lucknow, and Chandigarh.
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Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, said this marks the beginning of a long and decisive phase in India's fight against the pandemic and calls the COVID-19 vaccine drive, the biggest in mankind.
So far, in India, there are 1,04,79,179 cases of COVID-19 and out of that, 2,16,558 are active cases, 1,01,11,294 people have recovered and 1,51,327 people died.
Ready get set go!
— PuneAirport (@aaipunairport) January 12, 2021
Stand by India!
The vaccine to kill the disease is being loaded onto the aircrafts for distribution all over the country now.@AAI_Official @aairedwr pic.twitter.com/5lY9i4Tjdk