GUWAHATI: The first consignment containing vials of Covishield vaccine were dispatched from the Serum Institute of India from Pune reached Guwahati at 5 PM today.
Meanwhile, upon arrival, the consignment will be directly moved to the cold storage situated next to the Guwahati International Airport.
The vaccine consignments from Pune includes 276,000 doses to Guwahati, 996,000 doses to Kolkata, 3,72,000 doses to Hyderabad, 480,000 doses to Bhubaneswar, 648,000 doses to Bengaluru, 552,000 doses to Patna and 408,000 doses to Vijayawada on Tuesday.
According to the airport authority, 20 boxes each containing 12,000 doses have been delivered at Guwahati Airport. Meanwhile, 17 boxes are meant for Assam and 3 of Meghalaya respectively.
Serum Institute of India (SII) has received a purchase order from the Government of India for 11 million doses of Covishield vaccine, which would be available at the price of Rs 200 per dose, SII officials had said on Monday The first phase of the COVID-19 vaccination drive in the country is starting from January 16.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said: "We aim to vaccinate 30 crore people in the next few months." Around 3 crore healthcare workers and frontline workers will be vaccinated in the first phase of vaccination, he added. In the second phase, those above 50 years and those under 50 years with co-morbid conditions will be vaccinated, he further said.
The roll-out of Covid-19 vaccine will give priority to the healthcare and frontline workers who are estimated to be around 3 crore, followed by those above 50 years of age and the under-50 population groups with comorbidities numbering around 27 crore.
India recorded 12,584 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours, this is the lowest case spike in seven months. The virus testing on Sunday at 6.59 lakh was also the lowest since the third week of August. Active cases further dropped to 2.16 lakh while over 97 per cent of infected people have recovered.
The number of people who have tested positive for the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 in India has climbed to 96, the health ministry said on Monday.