The country is all set to start its COVID-19 vaccination process, which is to start from January 16. The first step of the initiative has already taken place. The Centre had ordered 11 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from Pune’s Serum Institute of India on Monday, after which, a flight carrying Covishield vaccine reached the Indira Gandhi International Airport on Tuesday morning.
The vaccine was carried from Pune to Delhi in a SpiceJet flight SG8937, which took off from Pune International Airport at 8:05 AM on Tuesday and landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport at 10:15 AAM.
As per the statement given by the chairman and managing director of SpiceJet, Ajay Singh, there were a total of 34 boxes and the net weight of the first consignment of the boxes containing the Covishield vaccine was 1088 kilograms.
Singh, while talking about the delivery of vaccines to the national capital, stated – “I am happy to share that SpiceJet has carried India’s first consignment of COVID-19 vaccines today. We will be carrying multiple vaccine consignments to different Indian cities including Guwahati, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Patna, and Vijaywada through the day today”.
The chairman and MD gladly asserted – “Today marks the beginning of a long and decisive phase in India’s fight against the pandemic and SpiceJet is proud to assist in the biggest vaccination drive in the history of mankind”.
Union Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday took to his Twitter handle to share his gladness due to the ‘momentous mission’ taken place, with back to back 2 tweets.