Hyderabad: India’s biggest COVID aid landed at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad early on Tuesday. The import consignment involved 56.6 tonnes of Russian-made Sputnik V vaccines, the biggest ever import of COVID vaccine shipment received so far. The vaccine consignment arrived from Russia on a specially chartered freighter RU-9450 at 3:43 hours.
GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo said,” While GHAC has already handled several import shipments of vaccine prior to this, today’s shipment of 56.6 tonnes of vaccines is the single largest import shipment of COVID-19 vaccines handled in India to date. This shipment completed all processes and was dispatched in less than 90 minutes.”
GHAC has been working closely with the experts from the customer’s supply chain team, officials from the customs department, and other relevant stakeholders over an extended period of time to ensure that the necessary infrastructure and handling processes are fully in place at the Air Cargo Terminal for smooth handling of the vaccine shipments.
The Sputnik V vaccine requires specialized handling and storage, and be stored at a temperature of -20 C. Key elements of the temperature-controlled infrastructure at GHAC are all being expanded in terms of both capacities as well as capabilities. Among other measures, GHAC has expanded the capacity of ‘Pharma Zone’ called to be India’s first dedicated pharma cargo export terminal, and introduced a unique temperature-controlled ‘Cool Dolly’ to safely transport shipments from the terminal to the aircraft.
Sputnik V sought approval from the Subject expert committee (SEC) for Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA), making it the third COVID-19 vaccine to get clearance in India.
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