Security enhanced at airport as first batch of COVID vaccine reaches Delhi

Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI Airport) Rajeev Ranjan said PCR vans along with local police will escort the vehicles carrying vaccines to its designated places.

PTI

January 12, 2021 / 11:14 IST

The consignment for Mumbai will leave by road. Trucks belonging to Kool-ex Cold Chain Ltd are being used to ferry the vaccine stocks from the Serum Institute of India. (Image: News18)

Security has been stepped up at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in the national capital from where the first consignment of Covishield vaccines from Pune will be transported to different parts of the city on Tuesday, police said.

A SpiceJet flight carrying the vaccines landed at the Delhi airport around 10 am on Tuesday, four days ahead of the launch of a nationwide drive against the coronavirus.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI Airport) Rajeev Ranjan said PCR vans along with local police will escort the vehicles carrying vaccines to its designated places.

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He said sufficient security arrangements have been put in place to facilitate the transportation of vaccines. Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Manish Agarwal said, ”If any schedule and movement of vaccine is shared with us and if facilitation is asked for, we will provide it.”

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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