Government places Covid vaccine order to Serum Institute

The Pune based pharmaceutical firm Serum Institute of India on Monday has confirmed that the government has sent a purchase order of 11 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. The cost of the vaccine to the government is Rs200 per vaccine dose for first 100 million doses. Covid-19 vaccine rolloutis scheduled to begin on January 16. 10 million doses of Covishield are being shipped in the first trance, the number may increase in the coming weeks. IMA also requested all of its 3.5 lakh members to get vaccinated against Covid-19 to show the world that the vaccines approved by Indian regulators are safe and efficacious.

In the first phase of the drive, health workers, both from government and private institutions, will be vaccinated along with sanitation workers, other frontline workers, defence forces, police and other paramilitary forces, Air-conditioned trucks will be used to transport the first consignment of Covishield doses from SII's facility in Pune to different parts of India. The government plans to cover 300 million people in the first part of the programme in which health workers, frontline staff such as police and people over the age of 50 and those with co-morbidities will be vaccinated first.