Hyderabad: The much-awaited moment finally arrived on Tuesday as the first consignment of Covid-19 vaccine for Telangana reached Hyderabad amid prayers and hopes of an early end to the pandemic.
Priests of various religious faiths offered prayers as the state received 3.64 lakh doses of Oxford-Astrazeneca's Covishield vaccine.
After arrival at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, the consignment was shifted to State Vaccine Centre at Koti, where the vials were kept in the storage under the prescribed temperature.
Divine blessings for the success of vaccination were sought as Hindu, Muslim and Christian priests offered prayers when the doses were received by top officials and shifted to the cold storage.
Director Public Health G. Srinivas Rao said both Covishield and Covaxin will be administered to health workers. In addition to 3.64 lakh doses of Covishield received from Serum Institute of India, Pune, the state also received 20,000 doses of Covaxin, developed and manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.
"This is a historic day for mankind as a vaccine is ready in a record time of 10 months," said Rao while thanking researchers and scientists who worked on developing the vaccines.
Bharat Biotech on Wednesday said it successfully air-shipped its COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, to 11 cities across the country on Tuesday. The Hyderabad-based vaccine major said it has donated 16.5 lakh doses to the Government of India.
"After having received the government purchase order for 55 lakh doses, the company shipped the first batch of vaccines (each vial containing 20 doses)," Bharat Biotech said in a statement.
It added that the vaccine have been sent to Ganavaram, Guwahati, Patna, Delhi, Kurukshetra, Bengaluru, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Chennai and Lucknow.
On Wednesday, the company also inked a pact with Precisa Medicamentos, a Brazilian company, to supply the COVID-19 vaccine candidate to the Latin American country.
Covaxin has been developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology.
The Covid-19 vaccine has been developed and manufactured in Hyderabad-based bio-containment facility.
Earlier, this month, India's drugs regulator DCGI approved the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, and indigenously-developed Covaxin, for restricted emergency use in the country.
With agency inputs