Health department begins work on preparing for Covid-19 vaccine storage and distribution

For the effective delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine, the state health department has initiated the process of collecting the data on the manpower required for the

For the effective delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine, the state health department has initiated the process of collecting the data on the manpower required for the distribution, while strengthening its cold-chain facilities for its possible refrigeration.

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Rajiv Arora, additional chief secretary, health department, said that activity has started as per the directions of the Union ministry of health and family welfare. “Districts have been directed to collect manpower data required for the distribution, along with the vaccine delivery systems. The state is getting ready for the time when the vaccine is available. It will be biggest vaccination exercise of all times. The department has been working overtime,” said Arora.

Centre has already directed the states to make robust plan for vaccine storage and distribution. Union health minister Harsh Vardhan in the first week of October said that approximately 20-25 crore people are likely to be covered under Covid-19 vaccination by July 2021. They are expected to utilise over 500 million vaccine doses for Covid-19.

In this process, the district health department has initiated the process of collating the data.Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, said, “The department has started the data collection of health care workers in the district. It includes workers in both government and private facilities. Meetings are being conducted with the private facilities to share the strength of their workforce. The exercise is extensive. It can be estimated that there are more than 40,000 health care workers in the district.”

Studies shows that vaccine could reach the market by next year as the clinical trials of the vaccine by the Serum Institute of India, Zydus Cadila and Bharat Biotech are in their advanced stages. The Serum Institute of India, along with University of Oxford and UK’s AstraZeneca, is conducting Phase 3 trials of Covidshield vaccine on 1,600 patients in India. Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin has received approval of Phase 3 trials on humans. Even the Russian Sputnik V vaccine will be tested in India on 100 volunteers.

Since the vaccine might require proper cold facilities for refrigeration at a particular temperature, the state has started working on cold chain facilities, said Arora.

Temperature data loggers, a digital device for accurate monitoring temperatures at cold chain points for vaccines are being installed. There are 38 cold chain points in the district, where temperature loggers are to be installed by November 1. In Haryana, 661 cold chain points are functional in 22 districts. In all the cold chain points, temperature loggers will have to be installed by November 12.

As reported by HT on October 20, vaccines are exposed to different temperatures in the cold chain supply, which has to be prevented. These are supplied from the medical depots to primary and community health centres. In this process, temperature at which a particular vaccine has to be kept varies between two to eight degree Celsius.

Covid-19 numbers

Covid-19 cases in Gurugram on Saturday crossed the 27,000-mark. With 398 new cases confirmed in a single day, the total count of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus reached 27,249. This week, for the last four consecutive days, the district has been reporting more than 300 cases every day. Each day the numbers are increasing, with daily test positivity rate almost 11-12%.