The consignment of the first Kovishield vaccine leaves the facility at the Serum Institute

 The three temperature-controlled trucks were airlifted from the gate of the Serum Institute shortly before 5 am and were flown to the Pune airport from where vaccines would be introduced across India. The truck contained 478 boxes of vaccines, each box weighing 32 kilograms, a source involved in the vaccine transport system told PTI.

PUNE: The decisive phase of India's fight against coronovirus began on Tuesday morning, as the first consignment of Covishield vaccines departed from the Serum Institute of India for Pune Airport, four days before the nationwide inoculation drive launch.

The three temperature-controlled trucks were airlifted from the gate of the Serum Institute shortly before 5 am and were flown to the Pune airport from where vaccines would be introduced across India.

The truck contained 478 boxes of vaccines, each box weighing 32 kilograms, a source involved in the vaccine transport system told PTI.

The trucks left the Serum Institute of India campus in Manjari and reached the airport located 15 km from the facility.

From the airport, vaccines will be dispatched to 13 locations across the country by 10 am.

A 'pooja' was performed before the vehicles left the facility.

The places where these Kovild vaccines will be brought from Pune include Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Karnal, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Guwahati, Lucknow, Chandigarh and Bhubaneswar.

The source said that the vaccine would be brought from Pune in eight commercial flights, including two commercial flights. He said that the first cargo flight would cover Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Bhubaneswar and the second cargo flight would go to Kolkata and Guwahati.

The consignment to Mumbai will go by road. Trucks belonging to Cool-X Cold Chain Limited are being used to ferment vaccine stocks from Serum Institute.

In the first batch, one consignment is to be flown by Air India Cargo to Ahmedabad.

On Monday, Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel tweeted that his state would receive the first consignment of coronavirus vaccine at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Airport in Ahmedabad at 10.45 am on Tuesday.

The central government on Monday placed stringent orders in advanced commitments for more than six crore doses from the Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech to vaccinate three crore healthcare and frontline workers in the first phase of a nationwide immunization campaign starting on January 16.

While interacting with the Chief Ministers of the state on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi underlined the pervasiveness of the world's largest vaccination exercise, with more than 30 million citizens in India getting only 2.5 crore vaccinations in the next few months Compared to jobs. In more than 50 countries in about a month.