Mumbai airport transports 2.7 lakh Covishield doses in a day

Workers unloads the boxes containing the Covishield doses at the Mumbai international airport

City's international airport on Wednesday transported more than 2.7 lakh doses of the Covishield vaccine across India, as part of its equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccine. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport delivered 227 boxes, containing approximately 2,72,400 Covishield doses, to 22 destinations across the country via SpiceJet, IndiGo, GoAir, and Vistara flights.

The first shipment of two boxes of the doses departed the CSMIA for Goa at 5.20 am, and the second flight took off to Rajkot at 6 am with seven boxes. In a statement, the CSMIA said it took just 7 minutes to process each cargo - from goods acceptance to dispatch at ramp - after following the relevant Standard Operating Procedures.

Bagdogra, Ranchi, Imphal, Agartala, Cochin, Bhopal, Kanpur, Jammu, Srinagar, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Gorakhpur, Raipur, Dehradun, Varanasi, Indore, Trivandrum and Jabalpur were other destinations where the vaccines were dispatched on Wednesday. At 27 and 25 boxes, respectively, Raipur and Cochin received the largest shipments.

The airport is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities such as Asia's largest temperature-controlled Export Pharma Excellence Centre and Pharma-dedicated Import Cold Zone, a first-of-its-kind ‘Cooltainer' facility and the largest hub for Envirotainer movements with over 60 power outlets for processing pharma active containers. It also has an exclusive station for storage and maintenance of both e-type and t-type active containers that help facilitate the seamless distribution of vaccines across India.