Pune: 20 Million Covishield Doses By Serum Institute To Be Dispatched From Pune Airport

Shikha Chaurasia

Pune, January 9, 2021: The Serum Institute of India (SII) manufactured Covishield vaccine dispatch has been planned to be initiated. The plan is to dispatch twenty million doses over a period of three days to various centres within the country.

According to a Times of India report, an airport official told the newspaper that the vaccines will be dispatched in scheduled aircraft and this process will continue for three days.

Transportation of the Vaccine: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) Cargo Logistics and Allied Services Company Limited is going to monitor the transport of the vaccine across 41 airports within the country. Pune airport is the central point for the delivery of the vaccines.

Big medical depots have been set up at four major airports namely Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Karnal, from here, the vaccines will be further dispatched to the remaining 37 airports.

What is the Standard Operating Procedure for the transportation of vaccine?

It takes approximately 30 minutes for a vaccine consignment to be loaded into an aircraft from the cargo hold area. While offloading, it takes nothing more than six minutes for the consignment to be loaded into an insulated van.

Challenges: According to authorities, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is not using the Pune airport at present due to the runway re-carpeting, hence the vaccine transportation will not be affected in any way.  

SII vaccine dispatch delayed by another 48 hours

As the transportation of the vaccine was expected to begin on Thursday and then Friday, it has now been delayed by another 48 hours. It is being said that the dispatch from the Pune airport will likely happen by Monday.