Among the Center’s elaborate plan to distribute the vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), are the country’s air and road transport network and the sites where the vaccine will be administered to eligible people in the first phase.
On Friday, the subject matter expert committee (SEC) of the Central Medicines Standards Control Organization (CDSCO) will meet to consider the application for emergency use authorization from three companies: Pfizer, Serum Institute of India (SII ) to be made by Oxford. AstraZeneca and Covaxin vaccine from Bharat Biotech. The committee is reviewing data from safety and efficacy trials conducted for IBS. The vaccine has been developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, which received regulatory approval in the UK on Wednesday.
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After drug controller approval, this is how the distribution plan will work:
1. Officials with knowledge of the government’s vaccination plan have said that special cargo planes with cold room storage space and refrigerated vans will begin transporting vials of the vaccine from Pune, where the Covid-vaccine production facilities are located. 19 of the SII, to various parts of the country.
2. The state administrations will then distribute the vaccine vials to district authorities for delivery to the hundreds of thousands of inoculation centers that will be established across India in a process that will span several weeks.
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3. Initial batches of the vaccine will only be sent to government hospitals, public health centers, or large private hospitals. The first two priority health care groups and other front-line workers, such as police personnel, will be vaccinated at these sites.
4. Polling places, wedding halls, community centers and mobile vans will be used as vaccination centers where the vaccine will be administered to the remaining high-risk population of older adults and people with comorbidities.
5. The national group of experts on the Covid-19 vaccine will send a request to the SII with specific details of how many vials (each vial of the vaccine will contain multiple doses) will be sent to each destination after the DGCI gives its approval.
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6. Officials have said that vaccines will be transported by air and by road, but not by rail, at least for now. “There is no plan to use Indian Railways refrigerated vans as of now. For destinations near Pune, vaccines would be delivered by road. On longer routes, cargo flights will carry the pallets, ”said the first official quoted above.
7. It will be the responsibility of the SII to deliver the vaccines to the designated destination points, but logistics and cold chains will be monitored mainly by the government. “The SII has the obligation to deliver it safely in specific places and deliver it to state or central officials. Once the delivery is made, the responsibility for further distribution rests entirely with the government, ”said a second official.
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8. The government has also established fixed destination points or locations to deliver vaccine shipments to states in capital cities and prominent urban centers.
9. Vaccines will be stored in four government medical warehouse warehouses in Karnal, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata and in state and regional vaccine warehouses. Refrigerated vans will bring these vaccines to the last point of the cold chain in Primary Health Centers (PHCs) and Community Health Centers.
10. Officials have said that the transportation of vaccines from states and regional stores to divisions and districts would be done in cold boxes using insulated vaccine vans. Vaccine carriers with ice packs are used to transport vaccines from APS to outreach sessions in the village, they added.
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