Bharat Biotech airlifts vaccine to 11 cities

Hyderabad: Bharat Biotech, on Wednesday, became the second vaccine manufacturer in the country to airlift its Covid-19 vaccine to different states. The city-based company sent its Covaxin to 11 cities.

While one set of shipments was sent from the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here in the morning, another set of deliveries was sent in the evening. Bharat Biotech received order for 55 lakh doses from the Centre. It donated 16.5 lakh doses to the government. Each Covaxin vial contains 20 doses.

The company delivered 20,000 doses to Telangana state, sending the supplies to the state vaccine store at Koti here. Wednesday’s deliveries were made to Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

Covaxin is an indigenous Covid-19 vaccine developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune. The vaccine, the company said, has demonstrated long-term immune responses to multiple viral proteins and its ability to potentially reduce or eliminate escape mutants of the virus.

With respect to safety, Bharat Biotech said Covaxin demonstrated a “safety profile, which is significantly lower than that of several other vaccines.” Earlier, the company also announced it has entered into an agreement with Brazil for supply of its Covid-19 vaccine to the South American country.