Tripura receives 56,500 doses of Covid vaccine

Agartala, Jan 13 (PTI): The first consignment of 56,500 doses of Covid-19 vaccine arrived here on Wednesday in a cargo flight of a private carrier, an official said.

The containers of the vaccine were shipped from Pune's Serum Institute and ferried to a special storage unit here from the city airport, he said.

"The consignment of 56,500 doses of Covishield vaccine arrived at the Agartala airport in the morning. The vaccine containers were transported to a National Health Mission (NHM) storage facility at Gorkhabasti area," State Immunization Officer Kallol Roy told reporters here.

The health department authorities have already started distribution of the vaccine doses to all the eight district headquarters of the state, he said.

"We will send the vaccine vials to primary health centres and sub-divisional medical facilities from tomorrow," he said.

Many healthcare personnel across the state have been trained for the vaccination drive which will be launched on January 16.

Tripura's Covid-19 tally stood at 33,315, while 32,857 people have recovered from the disease so far and 386 died.

The northeastern state now has 49 active coronavirus cases.

2^nd lot of Covid vaccine for Assam arrives at Guwahati airport

Guwahati, Jan. 13 (PTI): Assam received the second consignment of Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday as a cargo flight of a private airline carrying 12,000 doses of indigenously developed 'Covaxin' landed at the Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi International (LGBI) Airport here, an official said.

The freighter ferried three boxes, weighing around 78.5 kg, of the Covid vaccine from Hyderabad, he said.

"The consignment was shipped by Bharat Biotech and handed over to state government officials within six minutes of its arrival," a spokesperson of the Airport Authority of India said.

All the formalities were completed before the arrival of the flight for quick transportation of the vaccines directly from the aircraft, he said.

A consignment of Covid vaccine for Manipur is expected to arrive at the airport during the day, the official said.

The LGBI Airport has been marked as the nodal point of distribution of vaccines for the North East and it is equipped to transport such consignments to the regional states, he said.

The first batch of 2.40 lakh vials of Covid-19 vaccine for Assam and Meghalaya had landed at the airport here on Tuesday.

The Assam health department has kept the vaccines at a state-run store and will start distribution of it soon, a state government official said.

Assam will launch the vaccination programme on January 16 with priority to be given to healthcare and frontline workers, he said.

"We will roll out the drive from 74 sites across Assam, and 1,85,235 state health workers and 5,524 personnel from central medical agencies have registered their names for the programme," the official added.