2 days to go, Biotech begins vax shipment

Quote: Cong questions lack of choice

By not allowing recipients to pick vaccine of their choice, the government is reducing them to guinea pigs: Manish Tewari, cong leader

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 13

The drive against Covid-19 gathered momentum on Wednesday with planes carrying vaccines flying into airports across the country from where the cargo was dispatched to small cities and towns in readiness for the inoculation exercise.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to inaugurate the drive on January 16 through an interaction with health workers at select locations.

Bharat Biotech today shipped its stock of Covaxin to 11 cities. The company has given 16.5 lakh doses for free out of the bulk purchase order of 55 lakh doses.

It said the first batch of vaccine (each vial containing 20 doses) was air shipped to Gannavaram, Guwahati, Patna, Delhi, Kurukshetra, Bangalore, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Chennai and Lucknow.

The government has ordered 110 lakh doses of Covishield and 55 lakh of Covaxin for the first phase that will cover three crore health and frontline workers.

Meanwhile, Congress leaders Manish Tewari and Jaiveer Shergill today questioned the lack of vaccine choice to people after the government said beneficiaries would be inoculated with the vaccine allocated to a given site.

“By not allowing recipients to pick vaccine of their choice, the government is reducing them to guinea pigs,” Tewari said

Dr VK Paul, Member, Health, NITI Aayog, however, claimed both Covishield and Covaxin were safe and had been granted emergency use authorisation like all other vaccines worldwide. “Pfizer’s vaccine has got emergency use approval even as its trials are underway. Same is the case with all other vaccines. Covaxin and Covishield are both safe,” Paul said.