Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) saw the transportation of 2,400 vials of the Covishield vaccine to Goa during the early hours of Wednesday.
Read - Maharashtra Government To Issue QR-Coded Vaccine Passes
The flight was carried out by budget airline GoAir with a company spokesperson saying that they have scheduled flights with vaccines to Lucknow, Cochin, and Chandigarh as well. GoAir has said that it will airlift a total of 69,600 vials of the vaccine.
The spokesperson added that GoAir’s first flight with 2,400 vials containing 24,000 doses of the vaccine left the runway at 5:20 AM and reached Goa at 6:30 AM.
This comes as more than 56 lakh doses of the Covishield vaccine left Pune on Tuesday, Jan 12. These vaccines were transported to 13 cities across India, and will subsequently be distributed on a regional level. Vaccinations are slated to begin across India on January 16.
Also read - COVID-19 Vaccine Roll Out: Maharashtra To Get 9.63 Lakh Doses Of Covishield
The Covishield vaccine is produced by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) and originally developed jointly by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute. The Oxford vaccine, as it is commonly known has already been approved for use in the UK.
In addition to GoAir, the Centre has also tapped in the services of IndiGo and SpiceJet to transport vaccines to various parts of the country. It’s worth pointing out that the batch of vaccines meant for Mumbai has already been transported via road given the proximity to Pune. Mumbai’s Airport is looking to serve as the hub to send the vaccines to 16 destinations, the agency said in a statement.
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