Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday received 4.96 lakh doses of Covaxin, the much awaited indigenously-developed coronavirus vaccine.
A special cargo plane brought the vaccine to the Vijayawada airport from Pune on Tuesday afternoon. From there the consignment was shifted to the state vaccine depot in Gannavaram.
State Health Commissioner Katamaneni Bhaskar said the first consignment of vaccine doses would be sufficient to vaccinate about 3.7 lakh health care workers in the first round beginning January 16.
The state government made elaborate arrangements for storing the vaccine in temperature-controlled cold storage units.
Refrigerated vans will be used to transport the vaccine to over 1,900 session sites where the chosen healthcare workers will be given the vaccine from January 16.