Covid-19 vaccine doses arrive at Pataudi store

The first batch of over 84,630 doses of Covishield vaccine arrived at the regional vaccine storage facility in Pataudi on Thursday

The first batch of over 84,630 doses of Covishield vaccine arrived at the regional vaccine storage facility in Pataudi on Thursday. Another consignment of 11,400 doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin vaccine also arrived late night, confirmed district health department officials.

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Of the total supply, 44,950 Covishield doses and at least 4,200 doses from the Covaxin stock have been allocated for Gurugram. The district has received the maximum doses of the 22 districts in the state due to the highest number of Covid-19 cases being reported from the district.

The remaining stock of Covishield at the Pataudi storage unit has been allocated for nearby districts of Nuh (7,120 doses), Faridabad (21,770 doses), Palwal (5,090 doses) and Rewari (5,700 doses). In case of Covaxin, at least 3,000 doses will be given to Palwal and 4,200 to Faridabad.

Around 1pm on Thursday, the consignment of the Covishield vaccine arrived from the state vaccine store of Kurukshetra in a vaccine van. On entering Pataudi, two police vans escorted the vaccine van to ensure the secure delivery of the vaccine to the regional vaccine storage at the Pataudi Civil Hospital.

According to Pawan Kumar, the driver of the vaccine van, the consignment was collected from the state storage facility in Kurukshetra around 3.30am on Thursday. Cold boxes, in which vaccines were kept, were loaded onto the van and they left for Gurugram at 8:30am. On arrival, at least nine cold boxes were shifted straight to the walk-in room of the cold storage unit at the Pataudi hospital, he said.

A technician at the site said that each cold box contains 12,000 doses of the vaccine. From the cold box, they were shifted to the ice-lined refrigerator, to store them at the optimal temperature of 5 degrees Celsius. The technician, requesting anonymity, said the stock allocated for neighbouring districts was collected by the respective health teams in the evening and the stock for Gurugram left at the storage facility.

On the day of vaccination, the vaccines will be distributed to cold chain points and further to six session sites in the city through vaccine carriers, which will have ice packs conditioned at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius.

“Gurugram is the first district in the state to collect the vaccine from the state store. Vigilance has been increased to protect against any sort of pilferage or theft,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer. He said that the storage facility has a 24-hour power backup.

Officials said that continuous temperature monitoring will be done at the cold storage unit as there cannot be temperature excursion beyond 30 minutes. Any temperature fluctuation would affect the efficacy of the vaccine. The storage temperature has to be recorded twice a day through the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN).

For security purposes, four police personnel have been deployed at the site.

Karan Singh, the superintendent of police, Pataudi, said, “Our teams will be deployed 24x7 until we receive further orders from the police department. The teams will work in two shifts to prevent any unregulated movement.”

Yadav said that the distribution of Covaxin and Covishield to the vaccine sites will have to be decided. “Persons who will get the first vaccine jab at each of the six sites are yet to be confirmed.” He said that the district can finalise the list once the access of the Co-WIN platform is given to the district by the state health department.