Kol airport now a hub for Covid vaccine distribution

Kolkata: The Kolkata airport has turned into a hub of Covid-19 vaccine distribution with consignments being flown from Pune and later loaded on to flights headed for various cities in the north-east.

On Tuesday, the SpiceJet flight that flew in from Pune with nearly 1 lakh doses later flew to Guwahati with 2,40,000 doses of vaccine.

Of these, 2,04,000 doses were meant for Assam while the rest were for Meghalaya that was despatched by road from Guwahati airport.

Of the 9,96,000 doses that had arrived in Kolkata by the Spicejet cargo aircraft, 6,96,000 were meant for the health workers in Bengal. The rest were stored in the Central government regional vaccine depot at Hastings.

From the depot, 1,20,000 doses were transported to Kolkata airport on Wednesday. Two Indigo flights — one to Agartala and the other to Imphal — flew out with 60,000 doses of vaccine each. On Wednesday, 24,000 doses of Covishield were flown into Kolkata airport from Pune by an IndiGo flight. These vaccines were transferred to a waiting Air India flight to Aizwal.