Guwahati, Jan 12: The first batch of the vaccine arrived in the Northeast by a Kolkata-Guwahati cargo flight which landed at Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International (LGBI) Airport at Borjhar here this evening.

Airports Authority of India (AAI) sources here informed that 20 boxes of the vaccine, each containing 12,000 doses, were brought here from Pune via Kolkata by SpiceJet (SG 7715) freighter aircraft which landed at 4.58pm.

Out of the 20 boxes of vaccines 17 are for Assam and three for Meghalaya.

The cargo boxes were received by the AAI cargo wing, Airports Authority of India Cargo Logistics and Allied Services Company Ltd (AAICLAS), at the domestic cargo complex of the airport.

The boxes were subsequently handed over to the respective state health departments for distribution.

The Serum Institute of India (SII), Pune had early Tuesday morning dispatched the first consignment of the Covishield vaccine for distribution across various locations in the country

Officials from the state health department, CISF, airline staff, state traffic police and cold storage chain members among other representatives were present at the airport to receive the vaccine boxes.

According to reports, the central government had placed a purchase order with the Pune-based institute for 11 million doses of the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, Covishield, at a cost of Rs 210 per dose.

Covishield has been developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca and manufactured by the Pune-based institute.
Meanwhile, the Assam health department is all geared up to start the vaccination process with 1.5 lakh frontline healthcare, ASHA and Anganwadi workers as the first beneficiaries.