First consignment of Covishield vaccine arrives in Bengaluru

The first consignment of Serum Institute of India’s Covidshield vaccine arrived in Bengaluru on Tuesday. A SpiceJet flight that flew down from Pune brought 647,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine to the Bengaluru airport, as the state is gearing up to roll out the first phase of vaccination drive for healthcare workers on January 16.

The health department officials received the consignment which was then transported to the government cold storage facility in the health office premises in Bengaluru. The second consignment of the vaccine will be sent to Belagavi on Wednesday, health minister K Sudhakar told reporters.

The state has two major vaccine cold storage facilities -- in Bengaluru and Belagavi. Vaccines that arrive at these two centres will be sent to five regional storage centres in Chitradurga, Kalaburgi, Dakshina Kannada, Mysuru and Bagalakote.


The health minister said ‘not for sale’ stickers have been stamped on the vaccine boxes to avoid misuse of vial.

The state has identified 630,524 healthcare workers to be inoculated in the first phase. Additionally, 100,000 frontline workers too have been identified to be vaccinated in the next phases.

Vaccination drive has been planned in such a way that one vaccinator will immunise not more than 100 beneficiaries a day and each health facility can complete vaccination in 2-3 days, according to a health department official.

Larger hospitals and medical colleges may plan more days of vaccination, the officer said.