Augment cold chain for vaccine, Chandigarh told

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 24

The UT Administration has been directed to augment the cold chain and transport mechanism for a Covid vaccine by the Centre. The direction was issued at a meeting held with the Prime Minister today. Cold chain is a system of storing and transporting vaccine at the recommended temperature from the point of manufacture to the point of use.

City asked to form steering panel

All states and UTs have been told to form a steering committee on Covid vaccine. We have been asked to prioritise population for the vaccine and augment the cold chain. Chandigarh already has an adequate cold chain system and orders for more ILRs have been placed.- Manoj Parida, UT Adviser

Chandigarh has around 50 ice lined refrigerators (ILRs) under the universal immunisation programme.

According to the Central Government, the country is banking upon two vaccine candidates in the Phase 3 trials — one by the Serum Institute of India-Oxford University (AstraZeneca) and the other by Bharat Biotech. The tentative cold chain requirement for both these vaccine candidates can reportedly be met with the existing cold chain infrastructure.

Two US-based pharmaceutical companies, Moderna and Pfizer, have declared their Phase 3 reports and both require stringent cold chain management at - 70°C.

The PGI is one of the trial sites for the Oxford vaccine. Dr Jagat Ram, Director, PGI, said, “The Oxford vaccine does not require extreme cold temperature for storage. We have all facilities to store the vaccine even if the temperature requirement is -75°C or 2 to 8°C.”

Vaccine beneficiary will get certificate

The Central Government has announced that every beneficiary will be pre-registered for the Covid vaccine through bulk upload, self-registration and survey. Push messages will be sent out to the beneficiary and vaccinator before the vaccine session. Every beneficiary will receive a certificate upon the completion of the vaccination through SMS.

The first group of beneficiaries to get vaccination will be healthcare workers, followed by frontline workers, the elderly population (above 50 years) and population with comorbid conditions.

Dr Amandeep Kang, Director, Health Services, UT, said, “ANMs in the UT are already trained for an electronic system wherein the pre-registered beneficiaries will be vaccinated through SMS notification and a certificate will be generated upon completion. The database of around 12,000 healthcare workers has been created, who will receive the vaccination in the first phase.”