Russia's COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V arrives in Hyderabad

ANI photo

New Delhi: The much-awaited first consignment of Sputnik V vaccine landed at GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo on Saturday (May 1) as forces unite to battle the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic in India.

Last month, the Drug Controller General (DCGI) had issued permission for Dr. Reddy's Laboratories to import the Russian vaccine to India for emergency use. The rollout of the Russian vaccine is expected to augment India's third phase of the vaccination drive which commenced today amid a record rise in COVID-19 cases.

India for the first time has reported more than 4 lakh new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. A total of 4,01,993 fresh COVID-19 cases were recorded in the last 24 hours taking the cumulative count of the cases to 1,91,64,969, the Union Health Ministry reported on Saturday.

"First batch of SputnikV vaccine arrives in #Hyderabad, India! That's the same day the country starts mass COVID vaccination drive covering its entire adult population. Let's jointly defeat this pandemic. Together we are stronger": Sputnik V pic.twitter.com/NCFbPpaWvA

— ANI (@ANI) May 1, 2021

Sputnik V is the third vaccine India has given the go-ahead to after 'Covishield', developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca and 'Covaxin', the indigenous vaccine manufactured by Bharat Biotech. Covishield is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

Earlier, the Indian envoy to Russia Bala Venkatesh Varma had said that India expects between 150,000 to 200,000 ready-made vaccines to be available very quickly in the early part of May.

Diplomatic sources had told ANI that India will get a substantive number of vaccines in the first tranche and the supply will continue in installments. India is expecting 5 million vials of Sputnik vaccines by the next month.