Transported 3.5 tonnes of Covid-19 vaccines to 11 cities on Wednesday: SpiceJet

New Delhi: SpiceJet said it transported 3.5 tonnes of Covid-19 vaccines on Wednesday from Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad to 11 cities across the country. The movement of Covid-19 vaccines began on Tuesday morning. The shots will be used in the vaccination drive beginning Saturday.

"On January 13, 2021, SpiceJet shipped 111 boxes of Covid-19 vaccine, weighing 3.5 tonnes from Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad to 11 cities including Bagdogra, Dehradun, Srinagar, Jammu, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Jabalpur, Ranchi, Rajkot, Delhi and Bengaluru," the airline said in a statement.

The carrier said its freighter flight SG7555 operating from Hyderabad to Bengaluru took-off at 8.50 AM on Wednesday with a consignment of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin weighing 90 kg. It landed in Bengaluru at 10.23 am.

"From Mumbai, SpiceJet carried 74 boxes of Serum Institute of India's (SII's) Covishield vaccine to various cities including two to Bagdogra, 10 to Dehradun, seven to Srinagar, six to Jammu, six to Kanpur, nine to Gorakhpur, 13 to Jabalpur, 14 to Ranchi & seven to Rajkot," it noted.

From Pune, SpiceJet carried 34 boxes of Covishield to Delhi on Wednesday.

"This follows the successful shipment of 4 million doses of Covishield by SpiceJet on January 12," it noted.

The government on Monday placed firm orders in advanced commitments for over six crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines from SII and Bharat Biotech for inoculating three crore healthcare and frontline workers in the first phase of the vaccination drive scheduled to start from January 16. The cost is Rs 1,300 crore.

Covishield is developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and manufactured by the SII.

Bharat Biotech has developed the indigenous vaccine Covaxin in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology.