New Delhi: Long awaited Covid-19 vaccine Covishield come out from the laboratory serum institute on Tuesday and it will rolled out 56.5 lacs doses. The serum institute supplied Covid-19 vaccine Covishield on Tuesday morning for various cities including Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Lucknow, Kolkata, Guwahati, Vijayawada, Hyderabad and Patna in special flights.

India begins the first phase of a mass vaccination – claimed as the largest in the world – on 16th January 2021, with around 30 crore people, including three crore frontline workers, to be inoculated.

The serum institute CEO Adar Poonawalla said in a tweet that it was an “emotional moment” for his team at the Pune facility as the first shipments of the Covishield vaccine rolled out today. He also shared two photographs with his tweet – one of the whole team at Serum Institute and the other of him sitting at the truck with boxes of the shipment behind him. Three trucks left for various cities to deliver the vaccine.

Poonawalla said they have given a special price of ₹ 200 for the first 100 million doses on request by the government. The government plans to purchase a total of 5.60 crore doses of Covishield vaccine by April 2021, at ₹ 200 per dose. While 1.10 crore doses of the vaccine were purchased on Monday, there is a “commitment” to purchase another 4.50 crore doses by April 2021.

“We decided initially we won’t make a profit. After that we will still maintain a very reasonable price,. it will be a little more than ₹ 200, which is our cost price,” he said. “After that we’ll be selling it at ₹ 1000 per dose in the private market,” he added.