GMR air cargo received a shipment of 56.6 MT Sputnik V vaccines in the wee hours today at 3:40 a.m in Hyderabad. It is said to be the largest commercial consignment till date in India. This additional 3M million doses had been dispatched to Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. The vaccines will be later sent to various states of the nation depending on the need raised by the state governments. After COVISHIELD and COVAXIN, Sputnik-V will be the third COVID-19 vaccine that will be administered to the people.
Owing to the friendly relations maintained by India with Russia, this came as a good succour from the Russian govt after the scarcity of vaccines was observed in various states. The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) had given green signal for restricted emergency use of Sputnik V with certain limitations.
On the other hand, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal affirmed on Monday that Delhi would possibly receive the first consignment of Sputnik-V in June while iterating that vaccination is necessary to the battle against Covid-19.
“Sputnik will probably offer vaccines after June 20. They will start the vaccine production in the month of August. They are importing the vaccines right now, and they will allot a section of their imported vaccines to the Delhi government,” he stated.
Incidentally, the first batch of Sputnik V reached Hyderabad on May 1, which comprised 1,50,000 doses of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine.