Apollo Hospitals to roll out Sputnik V from June 2nd week; to complete 20M jabs by Sept

Apollo Hospitals will start administering Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V from the second week of June, the group announced on Thursday.

“Sputnik V, the third vaccine approved in India, will be available through the Apollo system from the second week of June. We believe that no one is safe till everyone is vaccinated,” said Shobana Kamineni, executive vice-chairperson, Apollo Group of Hospitals, in a statement.

According to the statement, Apollo Hospitals has administered one million vaccine doses across 80 locations in India, prioritising frontline workers, high-risk population, and corporate employees.

“As the largest vaccinator in the private sector, we will continue to support the Centre and State Governments in the fight against this pandemic. We will further ramp up our immunization program. We took 3 weeks to administer the first million jabs. By June, we will do a million every week and double that in July. We are on track to complete 20 million jabs by September 2021. We would like to thank the Union and State governments and the vaccine manufacturers of Covishield and Covaxin for their support,” she added.

Covishield and Covaxin were the first two shots to receive emergency approval in the country.

On May 17, both Apollo Hospitals and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories announced the launch of a limited pilot program for the Sputnik V vaccine as part of the soft launch by the latter. The first phase of the programme kicked off with vaccinations in Hyderabad on May 17, and in Visakhapatnam on May 18 at Apollo Hospitals in those cities.

Dr Reddy’s is yet to commercially launch Sputnik V anywhere in India. Apollo Group was one of the few hospital chains in the country that started vaccination in the 18-45 age group on May 1 as part of the government's Liberalized and Accelerated Phase-3 Strategy of Covid-19 Vaccination that started from May 1.

Apollo Hospitals begins Sputnik V vaccination

Covishield and Covaxin were the first two shots to be approved in the country. On May 17, both Apollo Hospitals and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories announced the launch of a limited pilot program for the Russian vaccine as part of the soft launch by the latter.

The first phase of the programme kicked off in Hyderabad on May 17, Visakhapatnam on May 18 at the Apollo Hospitals. Dr Reddy’s is yet to commercially launch Sputnik V in India. Apollo Group was one of the few hospital chains in the country to start the vaccination of the 18-45 age group on May 1 as part of the Centre’s Liberalized and Accelerated Phase-3 Strategy of COVID-19 Vaccination.