Ahead of the first phase of vaccination scheduled to kickstart on January 16, consignments of 2.65 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Rajkot, Vadodara and Surat on January 13.
Dispatched from Pune, the consignments reached Vadodara and Surat by road while Rajkot-bound consignments came by air.
On January 12, 2.76 lakh doses, developed by the Oxford University and the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and manufactured by the Pune-based SII, had landed at the Ahmedabad airport, the first consignment for Gujarat.
For the first phase, 5.41 lakh doses would be delivered in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot.
The vials reached in temperature-controlled trucks in Surat and Vadodara.
In Surat, Minister of State for Health Kumar Kanani, State BJP chief CR Patil, local MLAs and leaders offered prayers while receiving the consignments.
The vials have been stored at the civil hospital from where they will be sent to 22 booths within the city for inoculation of 34,000 including healthcare and frontline workers.
From the Surat regional centre, the doses will be dispatched to the southern districts of Navsari, Valsad, Tapi and Dang, they said.
The 77,000 doses that reached Rajkot are meant for Rajkot, Porbandar, Dwarka, Kutch, Morbi and Jamnagar districts.
They were received by Minister of State for Agriculture RC Faldu.
The Vadodara consignment caters to the districts of Vadodara, Chhota Udepur, Bharuch, Narmada, Panchmahal and Mahisagar, the officials said.
The vaccine stocks were received by local MLA and Speaker Rajendra Trivedi and others.
Around 17,000 healthcare and frontline workers will be covered in Vadodara city in the first phase.
The first consignment that arrived Ahmedabad is meant for the districts of Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Bhavnagar zones.
