Millions of
doses of the Covishield and the Covaxin vaccine have been delivered to the various
regional hubs across India as the nation gears up for the world’s largest COVID-19
vaccination drive, set to commence on Saturday.

India has
given emergency use authorization to two vaccine candidates so far, Covishield –
developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford and produced by the Serum
Institute of India (SII) – and Covaxin – developed by Bharat Biotech and the Indian
Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Virology (NIV).

The National
Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 is overseeing the programme
and has devised an end-to-end supply chain and logistics system. The central
government has placed orders for over six crore doses at a cost of Rs 1,300
crore.

Union
Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had earlier said that there are four Central
Government Medical Stores Depots, in Chennai, Karnal, Kolkata and Mumbai, where the
Covishield vaccine is being received, additionally all states have at least one
regional vaccine store.

Besides
this, 13 cities – Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Shillong, Guwahati, Vijayawada, Ahmedabad,
Bhubaneswar, Patna, Bengaluru, Lucknow and Chandigarh – have been designated as
regional hubs where the vaccine were shipped out on Tuesday ahead of the mass vaccination
drive.

In the national
capital, the Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital (RGSSH) has been designated
as the central storage facility. The state government has received a total of
2.74 lakh doses of the vaccine from the Centre, with 2.64 lakh doses of the
Covishield vaccine arriving amid high security on Tuesday.

A ‘green corridor’ from the airport to the hospital was created by the Delhi Police for the safe
transport of the vials.

Meanwhile,
in Kolkata, the vaccine is being stored in the Central Family Medical Stores in
Bagbazar. The first consignment of 10 lakh vaccines consists of 6.89 lakh doses
for West Bengal and the rest for nearby states.

Karnataka has
received a total of 7.95 lakh doses, 6.47 lakh of which are being stored in a facility
in Bengaluru and the rest in Belgavi. The state government has said that 16
lakh frontline workers will be administered the shots in the first phase in 235
sites.

Chennai
received 5.36 lakh doses of the Covishield vaccine, out of which 1.18 lakh
doses will be administered in the city and the rest in other districts across Tamil
Nadu. As many as 307 locations have been identified across the state for
administering the vaccines.

Nearly 5.5
lakh doses of the vaccine were received at Patna on Tuesday, which are being stored
at Bihar government’s facility at the Nalanda Medical College and Hospital.  

In Gujarat,
2.65 lakh doses were received in Surat, Rajkot and Vadodara by air and road on
Wednesday after 2.76 lakh doses reached Ahmedabad by air on Tuesday.

The shots
will be first administered to an around one crore healthcare and two crore
frontline workers. Individuals aged above 50 will be inoculated next, followed
by persons younger than 50 years of age with associated comorbidities.

Prime
Minister Narendra Modi will launch the pan-India rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination
drive on January 16 at 10:30 AM via video conferencing.